


Other Than Pecuniary Compensation

by Nimravidae



Category: 18th & 19th Century CE RPF, 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alexander is a Prostitute, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blow Jobs, Breathplay, Daddy Kink, Hooker AU, Internalized Self-Loathing, Lafayette is an Escort, M/M, Mirror Sex, Power Dynamics, Praise Kink, Semi-Public Sex, Shitty Aftercare, Unrequited Love, minor d/s themes, minor pain kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-22 18:58:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6090850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nimravidae/pseuds/Nimravidae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Desperation does funny things to a person. Desperate to get back to school and to get out from under the charity of his friends, Alexander Hamilton was willing to do most anything for cash, so when a wealthy man in a nice car and an even nicer suit starts picking him up each night he isn't about to say no. </p><p>Especially not when he ends up far deeper than he ever intended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This entire piece of work was inspired by the beauty and magnificence that is iniquiticity.
> 
> Title comes from The Reynolds Pamphlet (the real-life one).

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Alexander Hamilton was supposed to come to America, go to college, law school and then be at the very least a high-profit and in-demand defense attorney. He was supposed to keep up with his school work through his intense work ethic and balance it perfectly with the two jobs he had been using to keep himself afloat. All while getting straight A’s and joining a few clubs along the way.

Needless to say, that was not what happened.

Jobs demanded more hours and when he couldn’t cram them in-between classes and the unfortunate need to sleep, something had to go. He took less classes and gave up on his idea of graduating in half the time it would usually take—but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. It could never _be_ enough.

Both jobs vanished as waves of increasing debt and anxieties crashed into him and soon consumed his schooling too and—in a puff of dust and smoke and bullshit—there went Colombia too. It was supposed to be a semester off to get back on his feet. Then one turned into two and two turned into three and three turned into four and, with a startling realization from the grimy carpet of his shitty two-bedroom, Alexander realized he had been taking a misplaced gap year for nearly two and a half years.

He’d sprawled on his stomach on the floor of the living room, the obnoxious blue uniform of the crappy off-off-brand supermarket he managed to scrounge up a few hours from clashing against the off-off-beige carpeting. That job gave him the money to scrounge away to go back to college one day in the (hopefully) near future—Alexander paid for his rent and his necessities the old fashioned way. Getting in cars with strangers and sucking dick in alleys well past midnight.

It wasn’t pretty but it paid the bills to the place he was calling home.

The little apartment was crammed with enough people, with only one name on the lease, that it probably neared a fire hazard between them and the sheer amount of shit they seemed to accumulate. Of course Alexander was no innocent bystander in this, his corner of a room was stacked with battered and dusty law books; papers lie crammed between their pages with little regard to organization or the people who have to suffer through Alexander’s long-winded rant about never being able to find his shit in his own mess.

Mostly, it’s just John. It’s always just John. John Laurens. Alex’s best friend and the other half of their tiny room, John Laurens spent his days avoiding his father’s legacy and his nights doing exactly what Alexander wanted to be doing: making a difference. Fighting for people who can hardly fight for themselves, freeing the oppressed and being a general pain in the government’s ass. Meanwhile, Alex was a whole ‘nother type of pain in the ass.

“Are you working tonight?” The tone is too accusatory to be John, too American to be Lafayette, and not nearly as enticing as the call of death would be at that moment. Which left Alexander with only one clear option—the man with his outlandishly cool name signed on the bottom of the lease.

“And if I am, Mulligan?” His response is clipped and hard, half-muffled by the arm that keeps his face from touching carpet. “You shouldn’t be disparaging sex workers like this, you know. There’s a whole stigma surrounding it that’s gross as all fuck and we should be trying to break down those stigmas to create a safer environment for people who offer a basic, human service—although not a service that makes someone human but something that is really just simply a normal, natural part of life—so we can protect them from unjust laws, abusive pimps and forced sex-trafficking.”

“I’m not disparaging sex workers, I’m disparaging you.” He sounds more weary, his arms crossed over his chest—which still had the faintest traces of cloth fibers clinging to it from his tailors—and his eyes filled with that exact shade of pity that Alexander fucking hates.

“I,” he pushes himself up from the floor to look at his friend with a withering gaze, “who is a sex worker.”

“You, who is a hooker.” Even if it wasn’t for the accent, Alex hadn’t broken his staring contest with Mulligan so he would’ve known if the other man had spoken. But instead, a light French lilt floated in from the doorway. Where Mulligan had come home wearing a fine suit (which he made himself), standing in their threshold Lafayette was leaning against a doorway in a baggy shirt and jeans so tight Alexander had to do a twice-over to make sure they weren’t painted on. Lord have mercy did his legs ever stop?

Obviously he noticing was noticed as once his eyes finally climbed the lighthouse of a man there was a self-satisfied smirk curled like smoke on his lips. And that sure as shit killed any stirrings of heat in his gut that he would forever deny having at the sight, so instead he scoffed out, “And what does that make you?”

“I’m an escort. There’s a difference.” He didn’t even have the decency to not turn his nose up at the comparison. Alexander was well aware there was a difference. He worked in cars and alleys looking pretty to pick a stranger. Lafayette had appointments and lavish hotels and way more money for each dick he sucked or girl he let show him off at a gala than Alexander could dream of. But he wasn’t about to admit that to his face.

“Yeah, you’ve gotta look pretty. I just gotta look cheap,” he bit instead, finally standing up and brushing imaginary (and real) pieces of fiber and threat from his work pants. He tried to ignore the way Lafayette sighed, as if he were dealing with a petulant child instead of a twenty-three-year-old man who _he_ was the one that gave him the idea of whoring himself out.

Alex can count the moments down before Lafayette starts on his same, tired old topic again. Hell, he could even quote it if he wanted to. “Mon ami, I always say you can work for me,” and Alexander cuts him off even before Mulligan has time to uncross his arms and step between the two to mediate the way this conversation always went.

Which was thusly:

“I don’t need a pimp; I don’t _work_ for anybody.”

“I am not a pimp, I have no intent to be your pimp. Just your—“

“Middle-man. Yeah, I know, Gil you’ve said it a million times and the answer is still—“

“How many times has John scraped you off of the concrete after you made your advances on the wrong person?”

“That isn’t important, a few bruised ribs are _nothing_.”

“Yes. In _my_ work they are nothing because they have not happened to me.”

They advance closer and closer to each other, like two wild beasts snarling and circling each other trying to rise and rouse the other into exposing a weakness to sink their teeth into. But the tamer gets in the way instead, one hand on Alexander’s slight shoulder to nudge him backwards and the other in the center of Lafayette’s chest. He holds them apart as if just by the nape of their necks, knowing they would never come to blows but the words they could spit would strike just as hard.

“Look. Alex, you’re free to make your own decisions. I told you this when you moved in but we both just want your sorry, scrappy ass to stick around on this goddamn planet for as long as possible. Gilbert,” Lafayette looked up sharply as Mulligan said his name, guilt mixing with the fading frustration in his eyes, “I know, man. Alright? I know.”

He nods and it made Alexander’s nerves smolder. He knows. Knows what? That Alex can’t handle himself? That he’s just some stupid kid with stupid too-high dreams that he just can’t reach? That he needs someone protecting him? He fumed silently, jerking his shoulder back from Mulligans touch as if he were burned and stalking towards the backmost bedroom to retreat and lick his wounds.

Besides, he has to shower and change anyway. It was getting dark and the rage that boiled under his skin just pushed him forward to prove them wrong. To prove to Lafayette that he didn’t need anyone’s protection or charity. It wasn’t like he’d make for the best escort anyway—that required far more poise and elegance and beauty that Alexander was ever capable of.

He gathers up a fresh pair of clothes and ducked as fast as he could from bedroom to bathroom—only catching a side-ways glimpse of the two other men whispering where he’d left them and Alexander just thanked every God he stopped believing in that John wasn’t home conspiring with them.

There were certain blocks that Alex had learned not to wander into. Too many cops, not enough sleaze-bags or just controlled well-enough already that it wasn’t safe to fuck around there. Certain blocks he’d hurry past on his way to the few other ones he cycled through every couple of nights, standing out in the chill in a shirt that overplayed how lean he was and worn and threadbare jeans that made him look like he wasn’t always on the knife's-edge of starving.

He knew the next time he wandered past that church clothing drive, the girl with the pretty hair and the dark, knowing eyes would press a pair of jeans or a jacket into his hands despite his assurance that he was fine. He took it though. He always took it, because the way her shoulders relaxed in relief and the way she gave him a bright smile gave him something to think about when he’s biting his cheeks against the chatter of his teeth with nothing but thin clothes and anger at his roommates to keep him warm.

Standing as close to the light of the corner as he could without being a walking stereotype, Alexander kept his eyes sharp. Darting around for obvious police cars or suspicious people or—more obviously—people that looked interested. A few cars slowed but rolled away, leaving him to bite his tongue instead and glare.

He was a fucking catch.

Obviously they should be more interested than that.

The night drags and drags and, without a single goddamn paying customer and no other corner-worker who wasn’t too strung-out to hold a conversation in sight, Alex was one more slow roll-by away from packing it in and going home in shame. That is, until one car stopped. Came to a full and complete idling stop and stayed there.

It did not fit in. Not in the run-down neighborhood of closed shop signs and cracked streets and rotted out abandoned houses. And, well, him. It was expensive, a model that Lafayette could probably identify but Alex had no fucking clue. All he could say was it was sleek and nondescript shiny black, he felt himself gravitate for it with an unease that didn’t usually accompany him when he worked like this. He was a few steps away when the window rolled down and Alexander was not expecting that.

He was expecting some greasy-looking executive-type with a shattered tooth smile and a deadness in his eyes. Or maybe a guy pushing seventy. Or maybe someone who just straight up stole this car and was looking for someone to go for a joyride with.

Alex was most certainly not expecting the sole occupant of the car to be one of the most painfully handsome men he’s ever seen. Dark skin with a bald head, his features looked like they had been carved perfectly for that face and he almost pulled back. Almost asked him, seriously, if he was looking for directions.

Guys like this, who looked calm and collected as if they were about to pick up a dry-cleaning order instead of a fucking person, were dangerous clientele. But he couldn’t tear himself away, he couldn’t bring himself back and he thought of the comments Lafayette had made and his decision was set for him instead.

So instead, he leans in, all his weight on one leg to jutt his ass up as his elbows rest on the (expensive-looking) ledge, “Can I help you tonight?”

There was no way Alex could hold that dark, intense and completely unreadable gaze for more than a moment—but he tries. He tries and his eyes drop without his permission, so he tries to play it off as scanning over the body in the car instead of the embarrassment of being unable to feel him.

The voice that must have crawled from the very pits of this man’s throat rumbles like thunder before the lightning storm, an ominous warning sent from the Heavens above that Alexander was more than keen to ignore as it rolled on right through him. “Get in.

Pulling back enough to grip the edge of the sill with his fingers, Alexander—so lost in the sound of his voice still--didn’t run like he knows he should’ve. “I’m sorry?” He says instead, doing his best to sound offended.

“Either you are a good Samaritan who thinks I’ve lost my way—in which case, my apologies but I know where I am—or you are a prostitute.  If it’s the latter, I would recommend getting in. I will pay twice your usual fee.”

Twice.

He’s stupid. He’s angry. He’s desperate. He gets in the fucking car.

The first thing that clicks is it’s real leather seats, new enough that the fading scent catches above the realization that he made a massive, rookie mistake and if he gets murdered it’s entirely his fault. But he’s too distracted by the buttery feel of the leather under his hands as he brushes his fingers along the edge of the seat and the faint undertone of cologne that sifts through the combination of new car and fine, expensive taste. This guy really is loaded, isn’t he?

“My going rate depends on what you want.” He says to break the silence as the window rolls up and the car starts to move forward towards the parking lot of what used to be a nice restaurant, now long abandoned and dark. He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t even speak, so Alexander takes it upon himself to do so for him instead. “So, it’s-“ He’s immediately cut off by a shift from his client. Sliding one (massive, now that Alexander sees it) hand to the top of the wheel, he reaches into his pocket and hands off a thick wad of cash.

“That should be enough,” the voice comes down, a growl more than anything else and Alexander feels more like prey than he knows he should, “if it isn’t let me know.”

 _Should_ be enough? Alexander is three bills in and it’s past doubled his most expensive rate and part of him wants to jack up his prices for just the night but he can’t stand the bile that fills his gut at the idea of admitting what he was doing already wasn’t enough. So he peels enough from the fold and holds it between two fingers to the stranger. “This’ll get you all night,” he tells him as he hands the rest of the cash back, it takes him a moment to take it, “sorry, but if you’re looking for a high-class call girl, it isn’t me. I can hook you up with the prettiest, though.”

“I’m not,” and it sounds more assuring that Alexander would’ve liked for it to be. “It would be hard to be prettier than you anyway, my boy.”

Heat should not be churning in his gut like that. Heat should not be rising in his face like that. Not at the compliment and pet name from a guy who’s paying to fuck him, who doesn’t know his name and it’s all Alexander can do to not leave at that but he’s rooted. Rooted by the money in his hand, he tries to convince himself, but there’s something in this man. Something in this building of power that seeps off of him and he fills the space around him and the space around Alexander and the rest of the car and he’s pretty sure if he actually gets out he’d still be feeling like he was a mouse in the paws of a lion.

He wants to prove Lafayette and Mulligan wrong; he wants to prove everyone wrong. He wants to stay. He wants his heart to stop beating so goddamn loud in his ears. They come to a stop in a darkened part of the already dark lot, a place Alex knows well enough and he puts the car in park and Alexander folds the cash to shove in his shoe.

He can bolt. He can totally bolt.

He doesn’t want to bolt.

His eyes fixate on his fingers and he breathes in through his nose and out past his lips. Once. Twice. He almost flinches as a hand brushes against the line of his jaw, tilting his head towards the man. Forcing him to face him and Alexander knows that looking at him will be his undoing--it will shatter the lingering threads of his restraint--so he does it. He matches his eyes with his own and for a moment goes breathless. Honest to God breathless and it doesn’t help as a rough thumb sweeps across his bottom lip and, on an instinct he didn’t know he’d acquired, Alexander slides his tongue down to wet it.

Those eyes darken and Alex knows what he wants--knows what he came here for and Alex sure as hell isn’t going to give him his change.

“Would you like me to suck your cock, sir?” His voice teeters on demure and he twists sideways in the seat to rest his hand on the fabric of the charcoal gray suit that covers his thigh. He hears the grunt of pleasure at that and he’s pretty sure he’s struck gold on that assumption.

“Call me that again,” the command sends a sincere shiver down Alexander’s spine and he’s better than that. He knows he’s better than that. This isn’t real—this is work. No matter how solid the man’s leg is beneath his hands as he slowly moves up, up, up towards his crotch.

He purrs it out. “Sir,” he curls his lips around the word, his eyes half-lidded to give the impression of arousal as he slowly curves his hand around the evident bulge at the man’s groin.

The response he gets isn't quite the one he’d anticipated, his clients hand snapping forward like a serpent and five hard fingers curling against his jaw to drag his face to look at him again, and Alex can think of a plethora of reasons why that action shouldn’t have gone straight to his dick. But well—there it went and there it fucking stayed.

“Don’t do that.” His eyes are hard and dark and Alex doesn’t want to keep looking in them but he can’t bring himself to look away.

“Don’t do what, you said to call you ‘sir’ again,” it comes out more gritted and forced than he wanted it to sound, but his pulse is thudding so loud he can hear it echo in the chambers of his heart and he’s sure this guy can feel it in his grip.

He pulls him forward and for one terrifying, blistering, moment Alex is worried he’s going to kiss him. But he doesn’t—it seems Mister Rich Guy isn’t that stupid. He at least knows the most basic rule of store-brand hookers—or one of them. Instead his lips brush against the skin in front of his ear, making him shiver involuntarily, and he whispers, “Don’t patronize me by pretending to be aroused. I do not appreciate it.”

And God, Alex wants to lie. He wants to lie, say he is turned on and he isn’t patronizing him and he isn’t actually sure if that’s a lie. His voice has the same power as a creaking step in the middle of the night it sends adrenaline coursing through his veins and cranks up every sense Alex has to their highest settings. He’s pretty sure he can hear the crackle of electricity in the air.

“My mistake, sir.”

 “Yes. It was,” the mouth pulls away and the hand drops and Alex feels bereft. There’s a gentle throb under his jaw—he knows it won’t and he doesn’t even want to think about why he’s disappointed all he knows is he’s still got a job to do and if he’s lucky his dick will calm down long enough that he can get out of this without further embarrassing himself.

In a flash of brilliance, Alex keeps his head ducked. Eyes finding everything but those cold and dark ones above him, he instead fixates on gently kneading the man’s crotch with his fingertips. He follows along the outline of his cock as it becomes steadily more apparent and—okay wait. His stomach sinks and curls in on itself as he keeps stroking him through his pants, teeth catching his lip in an unconscious movement.

It seems like Rich Guy noticed too, if his soft and rumbling chuckle was to be believed. Alex is thankful he doesn’t say anything past that and instead focuses on threading his fingers through his hair and pressing his face down to his groin instead. Classy. Reeeeal classy.

But then again, Alex, you’re getting paid to suck a stranger’s dick, his brain decides to inform him despite the complete lack of him fucking asking.

He accepts it, despite his internal complaints, and obediently nuzzles into him as his fingers rush to make work of the man’s belt and fly. Admittedly, the only other type of guy Alex made haste doing this part for were the real creepy ones, or the ones who smelled god-awful. But Rich Guy was neither, and there was a part of him that really just wanted to know. Wanted to see if he was as big as he’d felt under his fingertips.

Rich Guy was. He makes quick work of his clothes, rearranging them with practice to free his cock and yep.

Alex wouldn’t be lying anymore and he hates himself for it. Well, more than usual anyway. He pulls back, the hand in his hair detaching, to reach into his own back pocket for his stash of condoms but Richie Rich here has it covered. He dangles one in his line of sight, not saying a word again as Alex takes it.

The silence is almost killing him. Most guys have at least something to say while Alex tears the wrapper open and rolls it down them. Some complaining, some making small talk, some reminding him that he’s the literal scum of the gutter. You know, the usual pillowtalk and whatever.

But he doesn’t. He pulls his knees up under himself to get better leverage in the wide seat, to avoid impaling himself on the emergency break, and press his lips to the head of this stranger’s cock. He doesn’t tease. He never teases a client that’s a good way to get yourself beat and not paid. Alex slowly takes him into his mouth, eyes screwed shut as those (thick, long, nice-looking) fingers twine back into his hair.

This guy’s big, sure, but Alex can take him. He knows he can—he’s a good whore and good whores can take it. He’s hardly halfway down when the fingers tighten and for a second Alex thinks this guy has the worst fucking stamina but he’s proven wrong instead when the fingers twist to pull him up and off of his cock.

His scalp fucking stings and it isn’t helping how tight his pants are getting when Rich Guy bites out on the brink of what sounds like a grunt, “Slower. Go slower.”

Oh. Swallowing what tiny scraps of pride Alex might have left, he ducks his head back down with no resistance and drags his tongue from root to tip in a drawn-out gesture, “Like this, sir?”

Rich Guy sighs, sounding awfully content. “Yes, my boy, just like that.”

There it is again. My boy. Alex has been called a lot of things over the years: bitch, whore, skank, slut, Jessica (it was an interesting night), baby girl. Just to name less than half of them. But never that and that one _does things to him_. A tiny, faint, moan curls on his exhale, way more genuine-sounding than he could’ve ever faked and his lips slide along the covered shaft in front of him.

“Do you like that? Do you like it when I call you my boy--how about my pretty boy? My pretty little bitch with his pretty little mouth.” Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuck, Alex draws in a shaking breath trying to hide the way his body reacts to that by wrapping his lips around the head of his cock instead. Distract him, he thinks. He tries, oh does he try, a soft suction over the head earning him a quick and shuddery moan that is only making his situation here worse.

If he was flying his flag half-mast before he most certainly was past that now, he was achingly hard like some green jackass who couldn’t distinguish himself work and pleasure. He uses his hand, wrapping his own slim fingers around the man’s length to slip up and down as he works him over with tongue and lips until he’s lavished every inch of him once and then twice again each moan and grunt and word that comes out of his mouth spurring him forward like he wasn’t being paid to do this.

The next time he wraps his lips around him, the hand in his hair pushes him down. Lightly at first then more insistent, “be a good boy for me.”

Oh he’ll be good. He’ll be the best—and just for him. Alex moans, outright moans around him and pride flickers like a dying ember gaining new life in his chest as his clients groan of pleasure comes out rattled and gasped. God, he’d love to hear him make that noise again. He was hitting buttons Alex didn’t even know he had, blunt nails scratching his scalp and pushing his head down farther, farther.

“Take it all, I know you can,” somehow, his voice got lower. Rougher and more commanding. And Alex would agree with him if his lips weren’t busy stretched obscenely around him and the tip of his cock wasn’t hitting the back of his throat. He doesn’t gag. He’s a good boy.

He’s a very good boy. He gathers himself, swallowing reflexively around him as he pulls up to get a better angle. He’s a good boy, he’ll make this good.

“Do you want me to fuck your face? I’ll shove my cock deep down your throat, fuck you until you can’t breathe, until you can’t think.” Right. Yep, Alex is pathetic. He’s pathetic. He’s pathetic and he _knows_ it. Alex draws a sharp breath through his nose, nodding the best he can with a dick in his mouth, and keeps his throat open. The hand twists harder in his hair and guides him up an inch or so.

And his hips meet him. He gags once but it doesn’t stop him and Alex knows speaking is going to be hard for at least the rest of the night as he makes good on his promise but he doesn’t fucking care. Right now all he can think of is the strings of curses and praise above him heating the blood under his skin to a dull roar that fills his veins and the scene of sex overpowering the cologne and the spit dribbling from his swollen lips and the tears springing the corner of his eyes. He’s pushed down a final time and he gags again but the hand doesn’t let up. It doesn’t let up until the echo of a final sharp moan dies down and Alex can pull back with a rattling cough.

It’s clear if it wasn’t for the condom, he would’ve been meant to take it and somehow that thought turns him on even more. His hard-on doesn’t fade as he coughs into his elbow, tears clouding his vision for a second or two and a rough thumb catches one stray streak of water down his cheek.

“I didn’t hurt you too badly, did I?”

“No,” he coughs again, belatedly pulling back from the hand. His client came, he should leave. “I’m fine. I promise.”

There’s a moment of silence and the rustling of clothes where Alex finally decides leaving’s the best idea. He’s half- turned when he hears it. “May I?” His client gestures towards Alex’s own (embarrassingly fucking evident) bulge in his jeans.

His hand drops from the handle of the car; his eyes drop to the shoe his cash is hiding in.

The answer is no. The answer is no. The answer is no. Don’t let him touch you. You’re being stupid. This is how you get killed. This is how you get fucked up.

“It’ll cost extra.”

His boxer briefs are sticky and uncomfortable by the time he slides out of the car. But he has another bill stuffed into his sock and the game of the guy whose hand he just ground into until he creamed himself like a desperate teen.

Washington. His name was Washington.

  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens. And it happens. And it happens. Again and again and again and again until Alex is starting to sense a pattern growing between him and Washington. It isn't helping that his friends growing desire to help only pushes him farther away.

He walks home with his head swimming and the shame that normally twists in his gut mysteriously absent as each step brings him closer and closer to his own private confessional. It wasn’t totally unlike whenever he’d crawl back to one of the more religious foster homes after a night of debauchery—that stench of judgement clinging to the air like smoke and filling his lungs with enough bitter acidity to choke him out. The shame doesn't avoid him for too much longer. Instead it waits coiled back behind in familiar grasses, building slowly with each stair to the apartment. Yeah, it starts to come back as his hand hovers over the doorknob; like a dog waiting to welcome him home except instead of licking his hands and yipping happily it sorta just punches him in the stomach with all the force of a speeding truck.

Quietly, he slides his key into the lock and lets the door creak open with a wince, feet light and quick all the way to his shared bedroom. He slips inside, internally chanting a prayer to no one that John’s either out or fast asleep still.

“How was the pull?” And the universe once again side-swipes him. Alex doesn’t flinch away from the edge in John’s voice, leaning his back against the door as he shuts it. Alex shrugs it off instead, kicking off his shoes so he can fish out his cash. He used to flinch at it, he used to twitch away from the shame and the questions and the pity in his friend’s eyes but over time it just became another Thing--just like the way they all sigh or shake their heads to themselves, refusing half the time to address the problem they have with what he does and passing unwanted judgement the other half.

“It was fine. Same as usual, I guess.”

John's sitting on his bed, his legs crossed with a book open in his lap. His hair mussed enough to give the impression that he’d been sleeping before and Alex knew he’d only woken up to make sure he’d come home. To make sure he didn’t have to come find him again, come help him limp back and patch up bruises and cuts. It used to make him angry, angry that John thought he had to be looked after like a wayward puppy.

Now it just made him sad.

No amount of fighting with him ever changed anything, though, despite how badly Alex wanted it to; if he was being really honest with himself (which he rarely was), he does like having someone to come back to. At least after rough nights John didn’t make him look him in the eye and would just run his fingers through his Alex's hair until he fell asleep. But those nights were slowly becoming less and less and he could feel John steadily getting more and more tired with him. But he can't stop himself from pushing him away still. Like he always does.

John's looking at him again, scrutinizing him. Like he'd followed all the instructions but the table's still wobbly and he can't figure out where it all went wrong. Alex ignores him dutifully and pushes aside a stack of papers and books to settle on his bed and count his earnings. He makes a rather a pointed effort to ignore the way John’s eyes followed his hands.

“I said it was a good night,” he reminds him when John makes a surprised little noise at the bills. It was twice what Alex usually made if he wasn’t on his back (or more accurately his hands and knees) for more than one person, he hadn't been kidding when he'd told Washington that just that fraction of what he handed him would buy out a whole night and he feels that twinge of guilt deep in his gut for probably ripping him off a little.

“How many?” There was the couple-hundred-dollar question, cut through the small talk to reach it and he's sure John's going to be shocked. He knows it, even. You don't live with someone for so long without knowing too much about one another.

“One.”

“Bullshit.” There it was. He grits his teeth in anticipation. “One guy? What did you _do_ for him?”

Alex shrugs, fighting the rising urge start sleeping on the couch to avoid this and instead focuses on folding the bills and tucking them where they belong, “I sucked his dick.”

Here it comes.

 

“That’s it?” There was a level of incredulousness in John’s voice that grates against Alex’s nerves, like John thought he could do this. Like that was really all it takes, something he's already doing for fun in bar bathrooms and after dates. That was what bothered him--more than the pity, more than the ugly names; what bothered him the most was the way people thought it doesn’t leave its imprint, like it doesn’t take and take and eat away at something inside of Alex in a different way than his day job bagging groceries for impatient soccer moms did.

Alex bites his tongue to hold back the vitriol that never works against John. He was the one person Alex could stand (most days). The one person who could stand Alex (some days). “Yes. He paid for an entire night but only wanted his dick sucked. I wasn’t about to argue with him, dude had a fancy car probably rollin’ in it and just looking for somewhere to blow his cash or whatever.”

There's more silence and it takes all of Alex’s self-control to not scream just to fill it. “Cool, I guess.”

Yeah, John. Cool. “Don’t you have work to do in the morning,” Alex asked finally, standing and getting ready to change for the night. As soon as he lifts his shirt he can feel John’s eyes back on him scanning for bruises and marks and he tugs it back down immediately. He doesn’t have anything to hide—but this is getting to be too much for one night. Too much, too soon and he can't stand the thought of those eyes judging him any more than they already are.

He mumbles some half-hearted excuse about needing to piss to change in the bathroom instead and this time, John pretends to be sleeping when he comes back.

Alex sighs and curls back into his bed and wakes up to an otherwise empty room. Usually John was so goddamn noisy in the mornings Alex was forced to get up alongside him, but it seemed like he’d made more of an effort or more realistically just didn’t want to face Alex’s still smoldering annoyance. He paws idly at the crate beside his bed that serves as a nightstand for his phone. It was eight-fifteen and he had three text messages. Two from Lafayette asking if he’d like to catch some French film at some festival downtown next weekend (since he was the _only_ one who would appreciate it according to Lafayette, which he pointedly responds that John speaks just as good of French as Alex does) and one from his boss asking him to come in at ten instead of noon.

He could do that, he figures, making his way to the bathroom to shower off the grime of last night.

Of last night.

Jesus fuck. It hits him like a baseball bat to the gut when he realizes exactly all the things he did wrong last night, like he was some fucking rookie. He should be dead. He should be dead in a dumpster with a bunch of cops standing over his body wondering who stabs someone like fifty times and his blood being actively cleaned off of leather upholstery. He shouldn’t have gotten in that fucking car in the first place, he shouldn’t have touched him, he shouldn’t have ignored every warning sign that flapped in front of his face and powered through because—in some other circumstance where this wasn’t his job —that was exactly the type of dude that Alex would’ve loved to screw.

Stupid.

He’s fucking stupid.

The water isn’t hot enough to un-scramble his brains and uncross whatever wires must’ve gotten fucked around but it is enough to soothe the crick in his neck.

And seriously, he thinks to himself, who says things like that to a cheap hooker?

_My boy._

_My pretty little whore._

Who says those things in a voice that stains you like ink, that refuses to scrub away with soap and water and tattoos deep into your gut as it churns through you? Rich guys over twice Alex’s age--that’s who. Rich guys over twice Alex’s age with hands that he’s having trouble not envisioning wrapped around his throat or around his cock. Jesus Christ those _hands_.

The feeling of his hand cupping over the bulge in his jeans, his huge palm hot even through the layers of fabric as he ground down against it panting nothing but _sirsirsirs_ until that voice rippled from the air around him and told him, “Washington. Call me Washington.”

He groans, just the ghosting memory of what had happened enough to make him hard, and rests his head against the cold tile--he shouldn’t have gotten in that car. He shouldn’t have. He's pathetic. Alex succeeds in ignoring his hard-on and focusing on mentally preparing for a day of working retail until it goes away. He finishes rinsing the shame from his body with a scrub-down of a cheap but efficient body wash as he contemplates working the streets again that night. Part of Alex knows he should, knows that Colombia is so close to his reach if he could just pocket some money. Another part tells him that whatever is curdling his gut whenever he thinks about Washington (that powerful voice, those dark eyes, his commanding presence) needs to be handled first.

It’s a difficult combination and he promptly shelves the decision until after he’s worked a few hours in retail and grabs a towel to dry himself off.

* * *

 

Two.

He makes it two hours into his shift before some women holding her son on her hip and sneer on her lips turns her nose up at him just like the hundreds before her. Strands of hair had fallen through from his ponytail and as much he he tried to brush them back they fell into his face with a frequency that only matched his growing frustration. He knows he looks like a mess, he feels like a mess and it's almost enough already to make him hate the constant buzzing in his head.

“See baby, this is why we go to college.”

His teeth grit behind his smile. _Yes ma’am. If you only knew, ma’am._

_Please, say more where I can most certainly hear you, ma’am._

It’s hardly the worst thing he’s heard working there--but it doesn’t lessen the blow that strikes right between his ribs. She doesn't know what he does to get back to school, she doesn't know what he does to make rent half the time, she doesn't know what does to make ends meet. She doesn't know what he'll be doing again tonight for sure.

“Have a nice day, ma’am.”

She doesn’t look twice at him, doesn’t respond or smile and Alex can feel his resolve chipping away under the half-bored glance of some chick he’ll never meet again, some chick he’ll never prove wrong. He could be plastered over the cover of every magazine, pushed in front of every TV camera on every news station, lauded as the youngest ever member of the supreme court or the president's cabinet and she’d never recognize him as the kid who bagged her groceries.

He bites the tip of his tongue so hard he can’t feel it.

He made it two hours into his shift without cracking, just like he did every other day, only seven more to go. 

Alex can mark it down as a point of pride as he makes it to the end of his shift without locking himself in a closet or screaming in the face of another lousy customer, a point of pride he will calmly and dutifully erase from the whiteboard of his conscious as he comes home to get ready for his night job. Because he’s still himself. He’s still too proud to admit he needs help, too proud to do anything but bite the hand that offers to hoist him back to safety.

He’s still a hooker, day job or no day job. He’s still a cheap whore, a doe-eyed _little slut._ His hand freezes where he reaches to grab a new shirt, a cold heat burrowing deep in his gut and he wishes, wishes to everything he knows, that this wasn’t actively happening. Wishes he wasn’t still caught on those eyes burning into him and that hand pushing his head down until he choked and that voice asking _if he’d hurt him_.

Alex knows he shouldn’t be lingering on that, on the thinnest and most flimsy thread of basic human decency to make sure you didn’t hurt the guy whose throat you just fucked. Washington must have had at least had some form of moral backbone, but Alex isn’t about to raise him to a pedestal just yet, not now and most preferably not ever.

He snatches the shirt from the floor, tugging it over his head and focusing on the eerie silence of the apartment in the rare moments it’s empty.

He doesn’t like the silence, he never did. So he leaves sooner than he would have liked, already knowing he'll be hanging around looking pathetic longer than he would normally.

The wind bites through his thin clothes as he walks down the broken and aged streets--already shaping up to be a poor night. No one wants cold hands on their junk or a prostitute who might die of hypothermia while riding them, but he decides to face the weather anyway, pulling his arms tighter around his body to preserve at least some semblance of warmth.

“Hey, Alex!” A voice like music darts over the expanse of a patchy-green courtyard belonging to the church just a few blocks down from the apartment, the sound's followed quickly by what could very well be an angel in disguise. “Alex, sorry, I saw you walking.”

She’s got long, dark hair in a braid over her shoulder, a smile that’s equal parts bright and shy and eyes that duck down if you meet them for too long and if Alexander had been born in another life, at another time, to another way, he’s certain he could’ve fallen in love with her.

“Hey, Eliza” he says, unwrapping one arm to wave, “is the church doing another fundraising sale in this wind? All your shi-ah-all your stuff’ll blow away. Then what’ll you sell?”

God, she beams at him whenever he says her name and he wishes he was someone else. Wishes he wasn’t Alexander Hamilton, especially when she tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear and holds out a bundle of cloth to him, “We're doing a clothing drive for the winter. Here! I found this, I figured I wouldn't bother waiting to get it to you since it's freezing out. I should be about your size, if I remember.” He already knows it'll fit because she's never given him something that didn't--she's never given him something that he didn't need or want and it hurts something deep inside of him. 

And of course, Alex takes a step back and there’s nothing sharp left in his voice when he tells her, “how many times do we do this? I promise, I don't need--”

“Just take the damn jacket, Alexander.” There’s nothing sharp in _his_ voice but damn is there cracked glass in hers. There’s a break in his walls for a moment and he sighs, reaching out and taking it. It’s leather, worn and old and a little flaking at the sleeves, but real warm leather. She gives him that bright, beautiful smile again.

She always knew how to wiggle through even the smallest of chips straight to his heart. He blames those eyes, dark and knowing. Too old for her, too wise. Those eyes stare expectantly, knowing he'll get the jacket right back into the donation bin if she turns around, so he slips the jacket on where she can see him do it and it’s still warm from her arms. She must’ve been holding onto it and waiting for him, waiting to see him walk down the road so she could pretend like it was an accident. He’s rolling through all the words in his mind to tell her thank you, to make it as sincere as he can when she reaches and takes his hand. Her delicate fingers around his used and abused ones. They don’t match. They’ll never match.

She squeezes his hand and he squeezes back, “I’ll see you around?”

“Of course you will,” he says as he lets her go. He swallows around the thick reminder in his throat--the one that reminds him she’s from another universe compared to him. She looks back at him standing there as she walks back to her life and Alex resolves to take another path home as he starts towards the same corner as last time.

Earlier than usual turned into later than usual but it doesn’t matter because the jacket around him is actually warm and it’s not too bulky or too tight and despite the acid and bile that rolls and crashes and breaks like waves in his gut he’s at least warm. Warm as he leans against the side of a building, watching cars whip past without a second thought. He isn’t disappointed, isn’t angry this time. He’s resigned, the chill will take away the clients and the clients have the money and the money pays his rent and his rent keeps him in the apartment.

The apartment keeps him with his friends.

His friends keep him whole, keep him alive.

It’s starting to taste like panic as the bile roars and crashes around in his gut and God, please just give him something. Anything. A sleazebag with a literal white van and a grin that’ll haunt his nightmares would even do to fight back the fear that threatens to claw into his heart and tear at the strings holding him together. Anything. Anything at all.

He’s so caught up between his jackrabbit heartbeat and his growing acceptance that nothing he’s going to do will help him out of here that he doesn’t notice the car at first. Black. Sleek.

Ominous in the edge of the streetlights glow, his feet move without his command towards it like he was beckoned, like a moth to a flame, like a man to the gallows.

His heart is beating in his head and making it swim and he needs it, needs someone to remind him of his place as Eliza’s smile haunts him. Remind him he’ll never be worth a fraction of what she is, remind him what he is, remind him where he belongs. The click of the door unlocking is deafening on the dying breaths of wind that whip around him. The money’s waiting for him on the dashboard and he's never felt so disgustingly validated in his life.

It happens, it happens and it keeps happening.

Each night he drags himself through the chill to the same pair of streetsigns and he’s never repeated a place so many times in a row. It's getting dangerous, people are starting to look at him more, recognize him more and this is how you get arrested but he can’t stop himself. He can’t stop his feet from dragging himself out the door against the wishes of his roommates, like they don’t know how much it pushes him back. John offers to take him to some concert while he ties his hair up. Lafayette complains through the door about how long it’s been since they’ve gone to see a film together while Alex is showering and Herc wants to borrow him for a fitting to test a new pattern he’d found and he knows it’s just pity. He knows it’s them trying to keep him from the corners like he’s a child, like he’s some toddler and if they don’t keep him entertained he’ll wander into traffic and get himself killed. And selfishly, he wishes they would all back up but they don't so he makes them.

He pushes them away the only way he thinks will work, he stands and he waits. Pretending like he doesn’t see other cars pull up and away until the only familiar one he can figure rolls to a stop.

Again. The money’s on the dashboard and he feels validated. Again. He brushes his thumbs along Alex's cheek no matter how many times or how sharply Alex pulls away. Again. He doesn’t gag once, but his cheeks are still tracked with tears and he can’t figure out why.

Again. He doesn’t think of John’s heavy sigh when Washington’s cock is in his throat.

Again. He doesn’t think of Lafayette’s sad eyes when Washington’s hand is in his hair.

Again. He doesn’t think of Mulligan’s crossed arms when Washington’s voice is in his ear.

He does it for five nights, five nights in a row he takes more money than he should for only blowing one client. Five nights he takes more money than he should from Washington, taking extra for letting him touch him. Five nights he takes Washington and only Washington and it's more money in five nights than he's gotten in a really, really long time. He's less and less afraid of missing payments and he's got more in a stash for going back to school and if Washington keeps coming back--he keeps letting him. It isn't like it's something new, it isn't like he surprises Alex each night.

It always starts out the same: Alex works him up with lips and tongue and hands then he fucks Alex’s face. He holds his head down, Alex moans like a pathetic whore because he’s too turned on by it not to and he's almost memorized the way Washington moans when he comes by now. He wants to, he wants that to haunt his days as much as it does his dreams.

It starts out the same, but in the end it branches. He’d let him rut against his hand one night, then almost twenty-four hours later he’d dip those large, rough fingers down the front of Alex’s jeans and wrap around his cock.

Once, he’d had him do it himself. Alex had been so damn red-faced as he jerked himself off in the passenger seat of a car worth more than his tuition had with the voice that wheedled its way into his dreams in his ear. “Show me how you like to be touched, show me how you touch yourself, my boy. Show me what a filthy whore you are under that pretty, pretty exterior.” Alex had moaned and he could feel a wicked grin aimed at him like a gun with a hair-pull trigger, “That’s right, you’re so very pretty. All red for me, all flushed and hard and beautiful. My boy, my pretty little pet whore.”

He came harder than he had on his own in a while. Not that he would admit that to anyone--even himself.

Alex had lingered that night, his breath coming in hard pants as he tucked himself back away and resolved to doing more laundry that night. “Do you know 3rd and Clearmont?”

“I know of it, yes. Why?” He asked with what almost sounded like a genuine interest edging his voice. All the hardness in his voice vanishes, Alex had noticed, whenever he was done whispering dirty things into his ear.

“That’s where I’ll be. Tomorrow night and a few more nights after it, if you want to find me again,” he pulled his hair back into a bun on his neck as he talked, already resolving to go home despite the relatively early hour. “Not that I’m expecting you to of course but, you know, if the last five nights have given way to any sort of pattern here I figured you’d like to know where I’m gonna be.”

His mind had tried to convince him not to look, but Alex was always bad at taking advice. He turned and looked at him. Brow knitted over his dark eyes, “Any reason I should know of that you won’t be here?”

“I don’t like staying in the same place, I’ve been on this corner too many nights in a row already.” He paused, his hand already on the handle to the door but he turned his head to throw over his shoulder, “Well, it’s for both our benefits. The less people see my face around here, the less cops think to arrest me and whoever’s car I’m in.”

There’s a noise of agreement and Alex figured that’s good enough for him and leaves, coat wrapped tighter around him as the temperature drops harder and faster.

* * *

 

He doesn’t know what to expect the next night, bouncing on his heels as the girls behind him swap stories of their weirdest clients. He’s pretty sure it’s the story about some guy having literal fleas and two dogs in the back seat again, but he can’t be sure. This city’s full of freaks and yet they’re the ones looked down on. He’s too caught up in the rush of anticipation and adrenaline to be paying much attention as a black car pulls up--only it’s the third one that night.

The third nondescript black car with tinted windows and a similar make and model to the one he’s used to, he’d stopped himself before going towards them each time each one a little wrong. Wrong size, wrong shape, a dent in the back he knows Washington wouldn’t let remain (how he knows, he doesn’t know--but he knows, he feels it deep in his gut).

This one Alex can’t quite tell, in the better lighting it looks like it could be the same or it could be different and he doesn’t move towards it. Something about it wasn’t quite the same, wasn’t quite right. It looked a little too wrong but it could've been the lighting, the angle, the way Alex was standing, even. As much as he wants to go up to it to check, his feet refuse to move this time. What if it’s not? What if he gets in the car and misses his chance with Washington for the night, what if he doesn't come back? What if he doesn't come at all? What if here's too far out the way and Alex is left without a single paying customer the entire night, and he's stuck going back to fluttering his eyelids for rancid-breathed men who don't give a shit if Alex chokes or not? Anxiety claws up his spine with sharp nails as one of the girls side-eyes him and brushes right past in her short skirt and sharp heels.

Alex watches as she leans in, pretty as a peach with her head tilted right and her lips pouting right and Alex knows if whoever's in there isn’t stupid--they’ll take her. They’ll let her in and let her suck their dick in a parking lot because she’s good. She’s good, he isn’t. His blood turns to ice as he realizes, for the first time, Washington might not come back because he doesn't want to, because Alex isn't worth it, because Alex isn't good enough for him. 

He isn’t good enough. He wasn't good enough. Fuck, he should've tried harder--he never tried hard enough. His eyes fall so he isn't staring at the exchange, but a hint of movement draws his attention right back to the scene. Maybe if he watches her get in the car it'll soothe over the sting of rejection starting to flood through his nervous system. 

Admittedly, Alex is stunned when she pulls back, a frown curling her painted lips and she huffs her way back this time far less gentle brushing past him, “he wants you.” She spits that last word and Alex isn’t stupid enough to take it personally. This is business. Not pleasure, she doesn’t hate him she hates the lack of clients out tonight. It still makes his gut curl as he makes his way to the car, the mechanical thunk of the lock far more familiar than anything else could be. He peeks through before he gets in, “I didn’t know it was you at first, sir.” He admits with a smallness to his voice that he almost doesn’t recognize

“It’s alright, my boy. It’s a different car, I was thinking about what you said. You were right about movements and discretion.” He was right. He thinks he’s right; he remembered what Alex had said. He took his advice. Pride swells hard in his chest and he keeps himself from ducking his chin down against his chest, instead he nods, “Good, sir. I’d hate for my best client to be in hot water because of me.”

Washington chuckles and Alex tries not to squirm as it rolls directly through him and threatens to sweep him along like an undertow. A flush almost flares before he realizes he’s not laughing at him, there’s nothing sharp in his eyes--not yet--and he can feel himself calm down. They've done this before, had this build of what was frighteningly close to familiarity only to crash back down to Alex nearly begging to be allowed to swallow down Washington's cock. Alex knows where it leads and all it does is light anticipation in his gut like the spark to tinder. 

“My boy, being caught paying for sex--even from a young man--is a scandal I can weather with ease.” Scandal. So he is important, important enough that he isn’t worried about being arrested and Alex makes a mental note to get around to Googling this guy when he gets home. Of course he's been telling himself that since the beginning but his fingers hover over the enter key and he decides he'd rather not know each time. Ignorance is bliss, right? 

He tries to shrug it off, pretending to be aloof and pretending not to care. He reaches for the cash on the dashboard to thumb through it, “Just looking out for my best-paying client.”

And best-paying he was. Alex double and triple checks the money before shaking his head, “This is too much. Way too much, I don’t take advance payment if that’s what you’re thinking of doing.” He tries to hand the rest of it back but Washington holds up a hand to stop him.

“I want something else tonight. I figured triple what I pay for your mouth would be sufficient, although I see now I was being presumptuous.”

God, who fucking _talks_ like that? Alex bites back a snap and tries to hand it back again. “Here’s the thing, you pay me enough already for whatever the fuck you want to do to me. So seriously, take it back. I'm a prostitute, not a charity case.”

There’s the darkness, flooding into Washington’s eyes as he narrows them and he goes cold. Heat is sapped from the car in an instant and Alex fights a shudder down his spine. He doesn't speak, doesn't say a word as Washington's knuckles tighten on the wheel and for a second Alex is sure he’s going to get kicked out. Kicked out, hit, beat, whatever and his gut sinks like a stone. He shouldn't have opened his goddamn mouth, he should've stayed quiet. His eyes fixate on his hands again and he prepares for the end to come, not tensing up until two fingers brush the underside of his chin to tilt his head towards him. He doesn't flinch, but his shoulders go rigid and the hand withdraws. Hesitating, hovering for a moment before falling back. Washington sighs, a long-suffering and drawn out sound that does nothing to ease Alexander. 

“There is something you need to understand, so allow me to be very clear. You are hardly a fraction of what I used to pay for very expensive and high-class escorts and yet you're far more skilled and enjoyable than any of them ever were. The payment is insubstantial to me and you should reconsider your costs.”

There's a brief flicker of silence before Alex finds it in himself to speak again. “I don’t ride dick in cars.” He says by way of retort, “so, sorry to disappoint.”

“I have taken that into consideration and made reservations elsewhere already. Take the money and put on your _goddamn_ seatbelt, son.”

Son?

_Son?_

His chest flares with a coil of indignation and heat; it's a bastardized mutation of  _my boy_ , it means nothing. It was probably just an inconsequential slip of the tongue but it sets fire to Alex and he has that rising knowledge screaming in his skull again that he should leave. He should go far, far away from this. He has the chance, the door's unlocked and he can just bolt. But he doesn't he doesn't because he wants him, he wants him to push his face into a musty old mattress and that's what's disgusting. This is business, he tells himself again. Not pleasure. He's weak, he doesn't have the resolve to resist the overwhelming aura of power and want coming from the man beside him. “There’s a motel two blocks down, charges by the hour and we’re all pretty sure it doesn’t have bedbugs,” he finally offers, clicking the seatbelt into place over his lap and leaning back against the buttery leather seats as Washington pulls away from the curb. 

"I told you, I made reservations already. The hotel isn't far and it's rather discrete." There's a moment before Washington's hand comes to settle on Alex's knee. It stays, like he's testing the water and Alex wants to remind him he doesn't have to. He paid for the night he can do whatever he wants and he's already getting tired of these games. Tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop, but he bites the inside of his cheek instead eyes resolutely watching the street signs pass as his hand creeps higher and higher on his leg, pulling his willing knees apart. "Will you be a good boy for me?" The question sounds more like a command in Washington's voice, like a promise and an order mixed into one.  _Be good for me. Be good for me and I'll be good to you._

Alex is only partially aware of his heart finding its new home high in his throat as he drops his fingers down to curl over Washington's, dragging his palm up to his groin. Where he can feel what he's doing to him, where he can feel him already half-hard and waiting. "I'll be a good boy," he promises, eyes following the powerful line of his arm up to his face. "I'll be good just for you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which all of Alex's friends only want the best for him and he can't see this and Washington alternates between shadier and less shady  
> This is going to be sad and shady and intense just so everyone knows. The chapter count also got extended and that might have to happen again.  
> If you wanna speculate on anything/ask questions/scream at me:  
> Find me on [Tumblr](http://www.nimravinedae.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/nimravinedae)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You should take these off,” he says with his voice lingering just above a whisper. His hand slides further up, rucking Alex’s shirt up with it as he draws his wide palm up over his bare stomach and to his ribcage, arm crossing over Alex’s body. He wants him to press, to press hard, to break him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please check the tags for updates on content/content warnings.

There is a certain sense of serenity when it comes to expecting the worst at any given time, it means that the only way you can be taken by surprise is pleasantly. The only way you can be taken by surprise is when something hasn’t gone completely sideways and crashed and burned in a spectacular display of fuck-uppery

Expecting the worst gives you a fighting chance and Alex has been expecting the worst since he was eleven and he watched his father leave and not come back.

Alex has been expecting the worst since he could hear the doctors through a hazy, under-water fog say that his mother wasn’t getting any better, since he saw blood splattered on the walls of his cousin's apartment, since he came to America and his brother stayed in Nevis. 

Since then, he’s always been expecting the worst to happen.

He expects people to leave him.

He expects people to hurt him.

He expects Washington to be gentle.

* * *

 

The hotel is a marvel, some place Alex couldn’t even hope to work at let alone ever be welcomed into if he wasn’t being guided past doors by a heavy hand on the small of his back and that heavy hand was belonging to someone who sure as hell looks like he belongs there. But still, Alex tries to keep his head up and something Lafayette told him once rings in his ears, _“If you look like you belong, mon ami, no one will ever be the wiser that you do not.”_

And he wants to look like he belongs, tries not to get caught up in the beauty of the tall ceilings, the modern cut-glass geometric design of hanging lights and the fine suits of the few men who lingered in the lobby hissing into their phones and checking their watches. He wants to look like he belongs in scuffed sneakers and a leather jacket two years older than he was, but someone looks down their nose at him and he feels himself press closer to Washington. Seeking something from him although he wasn’t sure what it was. Comfort? Reassurance?

None of those word felt right on the edge of his mind so he let his body speak for himself instead and tries to fall in line with Washington’s long and purposeful strides. Tries. He hadn’t realized until after the man had slide from the car that he nearly had a foot on him. Alex had been immediately breathless, like he’d been punched in the chest, as he’d gotten his first full view of the man.

A neatly tailored charcoal suit cutting close to his body provided a nice path for Alex to follow as he drank in the sight when he thought the man wasn’t looking. The broad line of his shoulders, the way his stood--his head high and his back straight--even when he adjusted the cuffs of his suit jacket. Alex’s eyes followed quickly down his arms to his hands and stuck there until his ink-smooth voice snapped him from it. “Are you going to continue staring or should we go inside? I believe I paid for a night, not an eternity.”

Something a little too close to shame bubbled in his gut and he’d ducked his head and that was what he returns to, at Washington’s side with his eyes flickering up only to tip back down after a few short moments. He’s never felt so small in his life, he’s never wanted to feel so small before.

Look like you belong.

The marble floor was so well-polished he can see the ceiling reflected down onto it. See himself. His eyes snap away fast, focusing on looking ahead. Square your shoulders. Chin up. Pretend like the hand on your back isn’t as much a flag branding you a cheap whore as your clothes were. Come on, Alex. Get it together. Keep it together. He keeps his eyes even, not looking down when they approach the desk. A tired-looking man does a fast double-take before clearing his throat and dropping a key in Washington's outstretched hand, “Mister Washington, so lovely to have you back again, sir.”

Again? Alex side-eyed Washington, he’d mentioned something about escorts the night before and it hadn’t quite registered that it was possible he did this a lot. Undeserved jealously kneaded the pit of his gut and curled up there to stay as Alex decided not to actively question it--especially if it would bring the question of how many people had he given his particular brand of service to before him? He doesn’t even want to think about the answer to that as he’s slowly guided from front desk to elevator.

“We’re on the twenty-first floor.” Washington says smoothly, calmly, far more even and steady than Alex could contrive to have at the present moment.

He thinks to say something, to make some off-color comment but the words die as he catches a glimpse of himself again in the shiney chrome of the elevator doors. Yeah, he doesn’t look like he belongs here, doesn’t look like he belongs at the side of someone who could probably throw enough money to pay for Alex’s college tuition into a river and not think or worry about it.

It isn’t until they’ve reached the floor, reached the room, that Washington speaks to him again. That he actually says something.

“It hasn’t occurred to me that I don’t know what to call you,” the door clicks shut behind him but Alex is way too distracted by the room to notice the way the noise echoes so loudly in his chest. Warm lights flood the room in a soft glow, seeping into the carpet and staining the walls with a golden blush. It’s clearly expensive, clearly costs more than a night with him. “You can call me whatever you want.” His voice is hardly his own, hardly pushing up from his throat. A chaise lounge is against the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the city on one side, and Alex wonders what it would be like to be pushed against the glass and taken. To let the whole world see how udderly ruined he could be in the height of the moment. He licks his lips involuntarily, eyes skating to the bed at last. There’s a mirror behind it, right above the headboard, and Alex makes a note to not look at his own reflection before turning his attention towards the mattress. Huge, soft-looking with crisp sheets and enough pillows to drown in. More than he deserves, he thinks, more than he deserves.

He can hear Washington walk up behind him, soft steps hardly breaking Alex’s muted awe. He doesn’t regain a proper control of his mind--racing ahead to all the ways he can ruin this room with his touch--until the long fingers of one hand splays out over the front of his hip and he’s reminded why he’s here. Reminded who he is.

Fingers curl under his shirt and brush against exposed skin just above the edge of his jeans. Alex can hear his own breath collapsing in his lungs and turning to a hard ball of ice in the very moment the pads of his fingers dance over his flesh. His feet trip and stumble as a sharp movement forces his back flush against the solid chest behind him and it never occurs to him how trapped he should be feeling.

He expects the worst--he expects Washington to be gentle.

Throat dry and tongue heavy in his mouth, it’s starting to become a trend that Alex just simply doesn’t have the words around Washington. He’s so goddamn tired of people treating him something he isn’t, something he’ll never be and he needs this. He needs the lips just behind his ear, the breath hot against his skin sending electric jolts across his nerves, he needs the voice that could command storms to cease at a moments notice punching through him.

“You should take these off,” he says with his voice lingering just above a whisper. His hand slides further up, rucking Alex’s shirt up with it as he draws his wide palm up over his bare stomach and to his ribcage, arm crossing over Alex’s body. He wants him to press, to press _hard_ , to break blood vessels under his skin and leave perfect imprints of his fingertips where he can poke and prod at them in the shower. Stain his skin the color of a thunderstorm; leave him with blotchy blues and blacks and grays from his hips to his chest to his throat but he knows Washington won’t.

You don’t break the merchandise no matter how much it begs.

No one ever accused Alex of not being smart, sure he did stupid things but that didn’t make him stupid. He was always smart, brilliant, even. He knows what happens when he makes a small twitch of a movement away from Washington, knows that arm is going to tighten and tense and his fingers will push into the skin under his ribs pulling him back tighter. Knows that feral teeth hide behind full lips as he twists and looks up at him under his lashes. He wonders what sort of print they’d leave on the inside of his thigh.

“How am I supposed to get undressed for you, sir, if you won’t let me go?” He feels Washington’s growl more than he hears it, rolling from his chest and striking at Alex like a coiled serpent. His arm tenses around him again before he retreats with a promising scrape of his nails down his body and for the very little he’s worth, Alex shivers again.

He’s not supposed to like this. He’s not supposed to like the way his skin sings in the moment just before he pulls away. “You’re right, my boy.”

It’s taking all of Alex’s restraint to not look at him, to focus his eyes forward as he lets his jacket fall from his shoulders and tugs his shirt up over his head. He can feel dark eyes on his back as he kicks off his shoes and his hands start on his jeans. He’s never felt more like prey, stalked from the weeds his pulse throbbing just under his skin as anticipation eats away at his self-control. All it takes for Alex to freeze is the soft noise of cloth hitting a carpeted floor and it never occurred to him that behind him Washington _might_ be getting undressed as well. What, did he expect him to fuck with the suit still on?

Actually. Not a bad thought. Or a very, very bad thought, depending on what side of Alex’s warring mind has control. As badly as Alex wants to turn, wants to see if he’s really made of all the muscle Alex had felt shifting and flexing against his back  before, he doesn’t. He wasn’t told he could look so he doesn’t. He empties the condoms and lube packets from his pockets and tosses them onto the bed before he pushes his jeans off his legs to leave in a puddle on the ground. He lets his hips swing as he strides towards the bed, heart in his throat.

Sitting in the edge, he opens his mouth to ask how Washington wants him when the words shrivel up and die on his tongue. The jacket’s gone, hung over the doorknob. What Alex had heard was his shirt falling away and now he’s watching him undo his belt with a click that’s borders on pornographic to his ears. He’s breathing too loud, his heart is racing too hard, his mouth is too dry. But fuck, he can’t look away, can’t tear his eyes off of him. Washington is muscle pulling under dark skin, defined biceps and powerful arms and he wants to see the rest of him. He needs to see the rest of him, see the thighs he’d felt tense under his hands so many times, see the smoothness of his skin and feel it instead of the coarse wool of his suit. He looks like he could break him and God, does Alex want him to.

“How do you want me?” He finally asks, his eyes unable to look away from his legs as Washington undoes his pants to kick them off and only then does Alex let his eyes slide to the outline of the mans cock. His teeth close over his lips and he can’t bring himself to make eye contact. His chest flares with an echo from before: Be good.

“On your knees.”

He expects the worst: he expects Washington to be gentle. Angling himself away, Alex stands to slide off the final piece of clothing he had on, tossing aside boxer-briefs like his last shred of control, and climbs back up onto the bed. He sinks down obediently on his knees, back curved, hands propping him up. It’s a familiar position, one Alex isn’t exactly unaccustomed too, but that way his skin prickles and burns as a heavy palm curves over his ass is new. The feeling only sharpens to a razor-edge as Washington drags his hand up the length of his back and all the way to curl his fingers against the back of his neck and Alex has unbidden thoughts of what it would be like if he squeezed. If he wrapped his hand all the way around his neck and made him beg for breath. He hates begging but he knows he will, he knows he’d be good and cave and beg.

Washington’s hand doesn’t move though. Instead he exerts the lightest amount of pressure to urge Alex down and he bends to his will like he was made of heated iron ready to be shaped by the hands of the smith. He drops his face to the sheets, he’s a good boy. He’ll let himself be poured into whatever mold Washington demands.

“You’re such a good boy,” he purrs, the hand not holding him down strokes lines of fire down his side until he can dig his fingers into Alex’s asscheek with a rough squeeze, “such a pretty little thing. Presenting like a bitch in heat.”

He bites down on a yelp and resists the urge to push back against his hands. More, more please. Each breath comes a little harder and a little faster as one thumb works circles just under Alex’s pulse-point and the other threatens to leave bruises on him. More, he needs more.

Both hands leave him at once, their heat only lingering for a moment before it’s replaced with a chill and he can’t fathom why the touch is gone until something falls into his line of sight.

Right. Lube. “Be a good little whore and open yourself for me,” Washington says his tone half-bored and Alex rushes to fix that.

The bottles still a little warm and he’s half-aware it’s not what he brought with him. Washington always had his own condoms, Alex supposes it makes sense he brought lube as well but he doesn’t dwell. He contorts himself to grab it, shifting his weight to one shoulder to pry the cap open and slick his fingers, some people didn’t like to wait and Alex isn’t sure if he’s worried or eager to please him as he reaches back to sink his first thin finger into himself. It’s easy, both on practice and that he had done the bare minimum for himself before he’d left (some people _really_ hate waiting) but he wants to be good for him to show him he’s worth all the money still in his jeans. If he was going to blow that much cash, Alex was determined to be the best.

His breath starts to hitch at the second finger, delicate and long pressed against the first inside him and he works them quickly, teeth catching his lower lip as he stifles a soft noise. Those hands are back, this time running up and down the sides of his thighs alternating between stroking and dragging his nails to make him shiver again and again. One breaks the pattern when Alex’s thighs tense, his fingers brushing against his prostate, and wraps around his cock instead. His lip slides from his teeth as he sucks in a shattered gasp, muffling his moan against the sheets.

Washington chuckles, low and rough, “You really are a cheap whore, aren’t you? You’re even hard for me, eager to be fucked face-first into the mattress. I bet you even moan like a filthy little thing, be a good boy and let me hear you. Let me hear you when you fuck yourself down on fingers as if it’s my cock.”

“Yes, fuck, please,” he finds himself pleading, three fingers as deep in himself as he can get with the poor angle and his quickly cramping wrist. But he can ignore that--he needs them deeper. He needs them deeper and for the hand on his cock to move and for Washington to tell him he’s worthless.

“Please, what? Be specific.”

His face is flushing--he knows that, he can feel the burn high on his cheekbones and he’s only thankful that Washington can’t see it. “Please fuck me, God, Sir. I need you to fuck me, I need your cock so deep inside me I can’t see straight. Grab my hips and pull me onto your dick and pound into me again and again and again,” he grits his teeth so hard his jaw hurts as he pushes his fingers deeper, twisting as best he can. He needs it deeper, he needs it harder.

Washington releases his cock and Alex is only half-sure he hears another short rumble of laughter at his frustrated whine before thick fingers wrap around his thin wrist. “Good boy,” he murmurs as he pulls Alex’s hand down and slides his slim fingers from himself. He’s too busy echoing the praise in his head again and again and again to respond.

Good boy.

He doesn’t deserve to be called that, not yet. Not when he’s so filthy and desperate and needy, pressing short, begging little whines into expensive sheets. His head is tucked under one arm, but he still peeks out to glance at Washington, taking in the sight of him, his strong thighs and the fold of muscle over his hips, as he kneels behind him. Alex watches, drinking in the sight of the body, as he tears open the condom wrapper and rolls it over his cock, spiking Alex’s heart rate up again. His breath is coming a little quicker by the time Washington’s touch returns to his him, one huge palm on each side of his ass as he spreads him and drags the length of his cock hot against the cleft. “You want this?” He asks, a groan lingering on the edge of his voice and Alex can't respond fast enough.

“Yes! Please, sir, please _please. Yes."_

He always expects to worst: he expects Washington to be gentle. He isn’t. The head of his cock brushes up against Alex’s hole and he twists his fingers into the sheets to stop himself from pushing back against it. He stops himself from being bad but his toes are curling against the bed and he needs it so much. There’s a hint of pressure and he almost begs for it with desperation thick on his tongue.

More, he wants more. Ten fingers dig into his soft skin and Washington snaps his hips forward and Alex’s jaw goes slack with a loud, filthy cry. He’s so fully so suddenly and there isn’t even a hint of hips pressed against him yet. Thankfully, Washington doesn’t wait, he doesn’t take his time, he isn’t gentle--he only sinks deeper and deeper into him with each rolling thrust until his hands slide to Alex’s hips to bring him back against him with each one to build the pressure deep inside again and again and again.

“Harder, harder, please, sir. God, pleasepleaseplease, I need it, I want it. I’m a good little slut, a good little whore--fuck--please, fuck me fuck me, _fuck me,_ ” saliva pools on the sheets as Alex begs and pleads with every ounce of hunger and need in his lithe frame. Each hard thrust sending shockwaves down his spine and turning his mind to white-noise static and blinding bursts of pleasure sharp on the edge of pain. He’s disgusting, he’s filthy, he needs it.

He needs it as Washington’s hands break the rules and grip his hips so tight he’ll have his fingerprints embedded in his bones. He needs it as Washington slides fingers into his hair and twist and pull until he forces his head up with a sharp cry, eyes screwed shut. His fingertips clamber for the headboard, for something to hold onto, to grip with white knuckles and blunt nails and Washington pushes his face up against something hard and cold. The mirror. Alex’s eyes open and, when the hand in his hair pulls him back just a fraction, he catches sight--for the first time--of himself. His jaw is still slack, tears are welling in eyes dark and hazy with lust; hair falls loose from the fist and drapes into his face and he’s dusted a dark pink from his cheekbones down past the edge of the mirror to his chest. He’s disgusting.

“Look at yourself,” the voice behind him growls and Alex can catch sight of him in the moments his vision isn’t blurred. He’s raw power. Sweat sticking to bare skin as he pounds hard into him, he looks like a God, like this is how Alex can worship him, on his knees with his cock aching to be touched. But he won’t touch himself, not until he’s allowed to. “You’re pathetic, nothing but a cock-hungry whore? A pretty little slut good for nothing but being fucked,” Washington sounds more ragged, rougher and more commanding against the sound of flesh slapping against flesh and Alex’s hoarse and loud cries of want and pleasure.

“I’m a whore, I’m your pretty little whore,” he whimpers, need trembling through his legs and up his body and burns like a wildfire, consuming all the oxygen in his lungs and constricting him with nothing but desire and smoke. He doesn’t know what’s louder, his moans, his heartbeat or the pounding of the headboard against the wall. He doesn’t care, not with Washington fucking deep inside him with each brutal snap of his hips, not with his body burning with an ache he’ll feel for days.

The hand in his hair releases and Alex’s head falls forward, hanging between his arms as he sucks in ragged and deep breaths like he can never get enough between filthy moans and high gasps and weak half-sobs he couldn’t even begin to think belong to him. Each pound of hips is harder and harder and shakes Alex to his very core until a hand finally wraps around his cock, pumping him in time with the unforgiving pace, “Come on, my slutty little thing. Come for me, be a good boy.”

One, two, three drags of Washington’s fist and white rushes his vision with black at the edges and he’s hardly coherent enough to register the word Washington says-- hearing nothing but a drowned warble of a rough voice. He struggles to comprehend anything except for a few more jarring, hard thrusts and a loud groan behind him and he’d let go of the headboard if his trembling muscles didn’t feel locked in place.

He registers the awful feeling of being so terribly empty, registers strong arms around him pulling him down to the bed. He registers a bleary figure dabbing at tears he didn’t know were streaking down his cheeks.

A hand in his hair and a voice telling him he’s good. He’s a good boy. He wants to tell it to leave, he’s not a good boy, but his hands won’t stop shaking and his mouth won’t form words and he can’t. He can't do anything but sniffle against a body-wracking sob and let the hands brush back his hair and let the voice whisper kind words before he vanishes for a moment. He’s warm, left curled on his side against something soft with his breathing sound too harsh for his own ears before the figure comes back. He blinks once, twice, stray drops of tears falling from his lashes as Washington comes into focus and it must be the haze--the fog--because he looks stricken. No longer stoic and unfeeling but for a moment Alex swears he looks like he doesn’t know what to do next.

Leave, part of Alex thinks. But he doesn’t. A warm hand comes to rest on his shoulder and strokes down the length of his arm, soothing tremors slowly. Steadily. The bed dips as Washington sits on the edge, his soft pets slowing as Alex’s breathing evens out to something less frantic and probably less worrisome. They slow but don't stop until Alex shifts back, feeling more like himself.

“The room’s paid for until eleven tomorrow morning. Feel free to stay,” he says quietly and all Alex can do is nod in understanding. The hand on his arm lifts and Alex doesn’t start shaking again so Washington stands, vanishing from his line of sight. There's the sound of clothes moving. He’s getting dressed.

Alex should do the same, he figures, and tries to push himself up but his body reacts with a sharp stab of equal parts non-compliance and pain and he sinks back into the soft downy comforter. Eleven. He can be out by eleven.

There’s quiet but for Alex’s breathing and Washington’s movement before the man clears his throat, “I’m afraid we won’t be seeing each other for a few days. I’m going to be out of the country on business, however if you wish to meet me here Sunday at ten I will be back by then. If I'm not, I’ll leave note with the hotel.”

His gut clenches. He’d been taking Washington as his only client for the last week rounded out with this night and now he’ll be without him for three days. “I’m a hooker, not an escort,” he croaks, voice sounding hoarse and raw.

“I’m aware,” Washington says and Alex turns to look at him. He’s tying his tie, hands as mesmerizing as ever. “Just because you do not work for an escort company does not mean you must resign yourself to cheap motels. Although I believe you’d do well in the escort service.”

Alex snorts, an undignified sound but he thinks he catches Washington’s lips curve just a bit, “You aren’t the first person to tell me that.”

“I doubt I’ll be the last. Sunday? I’ll pay the same I did tonight if that is sufficient, but if you take my advice to raise your fees let me know.”

“Sunday, and the price is the same.” He feels a little sick with that last comment. Right. Hooker. Washington leaves the key to the hotel room on the table by the door and Alex curls up in the colder bed and watches the city out the window until he falls asleep.

* * *

 

He wakes up at around eight-thirty, internal clock screaming despite how little he’d slept. He was right, his ass was fucking killing him. There was no way he was walking home like this--no way in any brand of fresh Hell. Even as he hobbles himself to the shower to scrape the dried lube from his thighs and the come from his stomach, he’s churning over the memories of the night in his mind. That was not business--he wasn't sure what it was. It isn’t business if your client stays more than five seconds after blowing his load and trashing his condom. It isn’t business if he pets your hair and wipes away your tears.

Well, it isn’t good business if you cry first of all.

Under the hot spray of the showers perfect water pressure, he brushes his fingertips under his eyes. He’d never gone so deep with a client before, gone under so hard and so fast but something about this Washington throws him and he's a little thankful he stayed as long as he did. The towels are almost too fluffy as he turns the water off, dries his hair and makes his way towards his puddle of clothing to fish a tie from his jacket pocket. He gets dressed stiffly, trying to push the deep ache from his mind and instead focus on getting home. The tips of his fingers brush the roll of cash in his pocket once he’s got his jeans on.

Maybe he’ll call a cab.

His breath catches in a grunt of pain as he sits to put his shoes on. He’s definitely calling a cab. It’s nearly ten by the time he drops the key at the front desk, ignoring the quadruple-take the girl running it does between the name the room is registered to and the scrappy little 20-something-year-old turning the key in and assuring her it was the right room. But at least the cab is quick and he’s not too far from the apartment that he has to worry about the exhaustion creeping back into his bones and worry mostly about passing out in the cab. He tips him well enough to get a series of thank-yous from him as Alex grumbles a few words back. Okay, maybe he’s super fucking tired still. But he doesn’t work today so he can sleep it off because right now Alex can pass out for an eternity.

“Alex.”

Oh right. Roommates. He grunts and gives half a wave as he shuffles inside.

“Where the _everloving fuck_ were you last night?”

Right. Roommates who _care_ . He focuses on John, his arms crossed and face flushed with what looks like some pretty red-hot rage. They were (almost) all temperamental, Alex liked to fight with words, John with fists, Lafayette with slamming doors and pouting. Though, Mulligan could talk his way out of damn-near anything. “Answers, Alex. I swear to God I was up all fucking night looking for you. You said you were working Third and Clearmont, right? I was looking _everywhere_ for you when you didn’t come home by five. Herc and Gil too,” John’s fingers tangled in his own hair and Alex was sure he wasn’t aware he was pacing in tight, short lines.

“I stayed at a hotel,” he replies, a fire of frustration eating up his guilt. “I was with a client for a while so I stayed a hotel; it’s no big deal, it isn’t like I haven’t done it before when I was too fucking _sore_ to walk home.”

John freezes in front of him, a wild-eyed look of disbelief, “but at least you called before, Alex. I thought, we thought...” His voice goes thick in his throat and Alex wants to feel guilty but he’s too goddamn tired and too goddamn sore and too goddamn confused.

“So what? You’re not my fucking parents, Laurens, I don’t have to call you when I’m staying the night at a boys place. I’m twenty-two years old, for _fucks_ sake, I can take care of myself. I don’t need you doing it for me,” he snaps, rubber-band temper shooting forward at the first target it can sting.

“We thought you were _dead_   you absolute _asshole.”_

Alex’s cutting retort was sliced short by the door opening and slamming behind him, a withdrawn and upset sigh curling from behind him with the jingle of keys falling onto the table. “I checked everywhere I could think again, and then once again. I could not find notre petite li-Alexander!”

Lafayette's arms wrap around his waist from behind and he buries his face right into the crook of Alex’s neck, breath sounding shaken on a sharp inhale, “Mon ami, we were so worried about you. You did not call, you did not return home. Laurens and I feared the worst had happened to you tell me are you alright? You have not been hurt? Tell me, where have you been?”

“He was a hotel all night,” John informs him rather bitterly. “He was too sore to walk home.”

Alex gives a valiant attempt to wiggle free but Lafayette’s long limbs cinch harder around him and catch the bruising marks high on his hips hard enough to make him wince. They freeze in tandem. Ah. Fuck. The Frenchman shares A Look with John over Alex’s shoulder and he doesn’t have enough time to react before his arms are caught in a tight grip behind his back and his dearest, douchiest, friend is advancing on him with a determined, protective look in his eye. “No, no I’m fine. I swear, let me go, I'm fine. For fucks sake, Gilbert, I swear to _God_ ,” he kicks out weakly with one leg but John easily dodges it to ruck up his shirt.

Three pink lines of scratches are still noticeable, if not a little faded, cutting a line from his ribcage to his hipbone paired with a few more raked own his side and a cluster of bruises line from a bit above his hips down under the edge of his jeans. Clearly Washington had to re-adjust his grip a few times, either that or he had _way_ more fingers than Alex remembered.

His head tilts back and he tries, in vain, to jerk free of the hold his friends hand on him, and he repeats with a warning growl, “let me go.”

This time Lafayette drops him, a disapproving noise in his throat, “At least he is not bleeding.”

“Not this time,” John confirms with a tone Alex can’t place right now and nor does he want to as he pulls his shirt back down, “I’ll call Herc and let him know he came home.”

A long-fingered hand comes to rest gently on Alex’s shoulder and he jerks to brush it off, Lafayette pulls it back softly with no trace of offense on his face, “We were simply worried. Your work is dangerous, you must understand. We only--”

“Care. I get it. Just, let me go the fuck to sleep, Gil.”

Something unreadable passes across his features as well and Alex is just tired. Tired enough that he lets Laf's arm curl around his waist and lessen the weight on his sore lower half as they walk to his room. “Of course, my friend. Sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I increased the chapter count (again!) because this was at 5.5k words and not at the point I had wished to get to yet. One day, I promise I'll be good at counting chapters I swear. (Chapter 4 coming 2/29)  
> Literally all of my love goes towards Iniquiticity because she is the most flawless human being I know and puts up with my insecure ass messaging her with ideas/requesting her opinion so much.
> 
> That being said! I'm looking forward to breaking hearts with these next few chapters so stay tuned!  
> Also: Historically speaking Herc Mulligan was a smooth talker and he needs way more of that all the time.  
> And my usual plug:  
> Questions/Concerns/Screams should all be directed to my [Tumblr](http://www.nimravinedae.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/nimravinedae)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex makes a mistake with Washington and slowly starts to figure out his friends.

The first thing Alex hears when he slips from his bedroom Sunday morning is an absolute mess of angry, rapid-fire French and the distinct sounds of pacing feet.

_ “I don’t care that he’s no longer interested in my business; I care that someone stole my client,”  _ Lafayette’s voice snaps from the living room. There was a pause, seething with a rolling rage, as Alex peeked into the room, curious. 

John sits, curled on the couch, his elbow propped on the arm as he works through the translation in his mind before responding back in French. Probably to make it easier on their friend as he paced the length in front of the couch with a feline grace, “ _ Do you even know where he would go to if not to you?” _

_ “No, that’s the worst part. There isn’t a single escort service half as good as mine in this town.”  _ One of Lafayette’s arms wraps around himself, digging his fingers into his own side while the other wraps around a lit cigarette, not even smoking it between words as it lets it smolder and shake. He doesn't even notice Alex's arrive as a distressed noise grows in his throat and snaps out like a trapped animal and he figures it's time to figure out what's going on.

“Someone poached your client?” Alex finally speaks up, in English this time, as he moves from just standing at the edge of the room to sitting on the other end of the couch. “How do you know?”

Lafayette’s lips curl into an angry sneer, his eyes dark with a raw rage rarely seen inside the Frenchman, “I called him to ask if he would be returning to our business tonight. He told me he no longer wishes to use my service--that he found someone  _ better  _ to use, claims it is nothing of my doing and that he is  _sorry_ .”

Jesus, Alex thinks, that’s cold. He turns to rest his back against the arm of the sofa and drop his feet into John’s lap as he gives a low whistle, “Harsh. He say who?”

“Non. Which, like I say, is bullshit. Someone is poaching my clients, I want to know who. I want to know who they are and why they doing this, whoever this is he is not better than me. He is not better than my services,” he finally takes a drag of his cigarette, exhaling a long sigh that curls up with the smoke. “It is not fair, my friends.”

“Nope,” John offers as his hand falls over one of Alex’s ankles idly, thumb rubbing circles against the bone, “It’s not, man. But you do spend hours sorting through clients is this guy really that important? You’ve got shit tons of clients, this a guy you liked taking personally?” His emphasis on  _ taking  _ make Alex stifle a snort in his hand with a weak attempt to cough to cover it up. 

Lafayette fixes them with a long, withering and wholly un-amused look before rolling his eyes dramatically and waving his hand in a dismissive motion, “He was never one of mine--too pushy. He likes control, I like control. It would not work, though we have conversed about possibilities on less professional grounds, none of them came to fruition. My boys, they liked him though. He was one of the better fucks available to them.” His shoulders fall with a soft sort of slump and he sets the half-gone cigarette in the ashtray on the coffee table, trading it out for a mug nearby. 

Sipping, he wrinkles his nose. “And my coffee has gone cold. Takers?” He asks as he holds it out and Alex’s eager hands take it from him. He never minded cold coffee, especially if it’s as sweet as Lafayette usually likes it. “At least it’s not that guy you never shut up about, though. Probably-Fake-Name, guy?”

“Andre? No, no, at least he has not been seduced elsewhere,” Lafayette concludes after a moment, one hip cocked and his arms crossed again. He sighs with an extra dose of drama and fixates his glare on the window instead, “Whatever. There are other clients, other needy businessmen who need to take the stress off with a pretty, young thing. Washington can keep spending his damn money elsewhere.”

Alex chokes. 

He coughs and splutters on the overly-sweet coffee as John arches a confused brow him, but that isn’t what he cares about--no, Lafayette turns, slowly, to look at Alex. He wheezes for air, still clearing his throat and his mind races. Shit. Fuck.

He should’ve known. Washington said he’d used escorts before he should have known there was a reason he stopped, he should have known he was taking someone else's business. Lafayette’s eyes widen at him and then narrow immediately afterwards. “No.”

Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit.

He tries to come up with something to say, something reasonable something to explain that he had no fucking idea that Washington had been one of Lafayette’s clients, and in the end the first thing that comes from his open mouth, “Jesus, I guess that’s why he told me I should start charging more.”

John snorts, Lafayette is far less amused. His eyes roll and he huffs a sharp, “Ha ha. Fuck you, Alex,” before picking back up his cigarette and taking a long drag from it.

“Do you even know who he is?” He asks after a moment, blowing smoke towards the open window he’d previously been glaring at.

Alex shrugs, “No? Should I?”

Lafayette's narrow shoulder sink down and he chuckles, shaking his head and looking back at him again. “You have been spending your nights with the George Washington and you do not even know.”

George Washington.

The name rings dull in the back of his head once. Twice. Three times before he snaps upright, startling John. No way, no no no. He’d never made the connection between the money, the fancy suits, the business trip out of the country. The George Washington. Even John is starting back at him again, all trace of humor dripped from his expression like long-melted wax and Alex has to suck in a breath to ask, “George Washington. Like, the elusive CEO of Patriot Industries, George Washington. The elusive CEO of Patriot Industries, George Washington, whose company just broke away from that England-based company for breaching their contract in this last decade's biggest court battle? Avoids the press like crazy, holes up in his huge fucking estate and keeps being called the literal pinnacle of current US pride for proving that we can break up their monopoly?  _ That George Washington _ ?” His voice breaks into something far more shrill and sharp.

“The one and only, my friend. He has been under a  _ significant _ amount of stress recently and he pays me and my men to help alleviate that. Or should I say, paid? He has you for that now, congratulations, mon ami, you are now fucking America’s favorite businessman.” Where Alex lost control of his voice, Lafayette’s still holds the same calm sigh he’d adopted as he stubs out the remains of his cigarette and brushes past the pair on the couch, “Get dressed. You owe me breakfast for this… thievery.” 

John’s eyes were still steady on Alex, his hand giving his ankle a friendly little squeeze and a pat, as he finally shakes his head, “You’re fucked.” Super fucked. “Do you think you’ll see him again?”

“I’m seeing him tonight, I already agreed to,” Alex says, his voice numb and distant as he pulls his legs back to stand up. He feels woozy. Dizzy. Too much information too soon and it doesn’t feel real anymore, this has to be a joke. It has to be a joke--the Washington whose interviews were rare and and candid snaps of him even rarer, that wasn’t the same one. The same man who brushed away tears when he was rough enough to make Alex slide, the same man who fucked him so hard he left bruises? Discretion was key and Alex knew why now.

Familiar eyes found Alex’s for a moment, as though he were seeking out some big truth under piles and piles of worrisome garbage, “It’s just business, though. Right?”

Alex never lies to John, it’s something he prides himself on. He bends and stretches the truth and straight-up avoids questions that he doesn’t want to answer but he’ll never lie right to his face because beyond every fight and snapped word and slammed door, John’s his best friend. He respects him too goddamn much to do that.

“Yeah, it’s just business,” and Alexander has never hated himself more. “Come on, you know Gil turns into a drama queen if we keep him waiting.”

John stands up, his posture stiff and strained, “what doesn’t turn Gil into a drama queen?”

“Got me there, bro.” The other man’s lips crack into an edge of a smile and the knot in Alex’s gut starts to unravel bit by bit as he playfully nudges his shoulder against John’s just to get a soft bump back.

By the time Alex had tugged the jacket Eliza gave him over a clean shirt and wrapped a scarf around his neck and up to his nose, Lafayette had been sprawled over the couch complaining for a solid five minutes. “By the time we get there you might as well be buying me dinner,” he whines, one slender leg high in the air as the other dangles down over the armrest.

“Calm down, it’s hardly ten, man,” Alex huffs, finally stuffing his fingers into a pair of gloves and fully ready to admit he’s no good with the cold at all. Lafayette drags himself up and, with John and Alex following, starts down towards the exit. 

It’s hardly a distance to the cheap and run-down diner they most often frequent, but it drags them past the church just as mass is letting out and crowding the sidewalk with a thick throng of people. The group ducks and weaves around smiles and well-wishes that Lafayette and John return but Alex dips his head and avoids with his eyes following cracks in the sidewalk instead. People in their nice clothing with their lives together telling the prostitute they really hope he has a nice day, it makes him queasy again.

“Alex!” And the queasiness jolts up to eleven as he grinds to a halt and nearly bumps into a man wearing more scowl than morning joy. He whips around and he’s sure this time she might have wings hidden somewhere he can’t see. Eliza’s hair sweeps loose around her neck pooling over her shoulders down against a soft white dress. Her hands rub at her bare arms as the winter winds pick up and toy with the skirt, flicking her dark hair into her face and he’s temporarily breathless. “Eliza, hi,” he sounds like a goddamn fool. Half choking on his words as she grins at him, wide and bright and seeing her in white is sending his mind places it shouldn’t be.

“I haven’t seen you in a while, I was starting to get--”

“Worried.” He cuts her off, wincing a bit at how rude it sounds, “Sorry. I mean, I get it but you don’t have to--”

“Worry?” She returns the favor with a smaller smile, lips crooking slightly, “I know I don’t have to, but I do anyway.”

Somewhere behind him, he hears muffled French and the distinct sound of someone being punched in the side. She shivers in the wind and Alex can’t get his hands to his scarf fast enough, “Here, let me.” He unwraps the blue-and-buff striped monstrosity of warmth from around his neck despite her protests. “No, seriously. I insist, you look like you’re freezing. You can consider it my thank you for keeping me warm recently.” 

Eliza doesn’t stop him as he drapes it around her neck once, and then twice. It’s long enough to dangle but he doesn’t dare get closer, doesn’t care let his fingers brush her skin and tarnish what she still has. Her delicate and thin fingers curls lightly around the edge of it, lips pursing like she’s about to say something before her eyes slide past his shoulder and onto whatever commotion was happening behind him. “Your friends,” she already sound sorry when she says it and when Alex turns around he can see why.

John’s arm was hooked around Lafayette’s neck, pulling him down to nearly doubled-over to appropriately deliver whatever sort of punishment was due for whatever was making him cackle that viciously. It can’t have been good and Alex doesn’t have much else to say as he turns back to Eliza, “I should take them far, far away.”

If he could lock her small giggle away forever, he would. But he doesn’t. He can’t. So instead he lets her take his hand with another friendly, warm squeeze, “Thank you for the scarf, Alex. Don’t be such a stranger, okay?” They both look up when an unfamiliar voice calls her name and she glances back over her shoulder to a group of three around a car. “I should go.” He can't bring himself to tell her to stay, to come get breakfast with them. So he doesn't.

He nods and says nothing and, sure enough, she leaves.

“Who is that?” The question comes from Lafayette’s mouth but it’s clear it’s intended to be from both and Alex shrugs one shoulder before turning back towards the sidewalk, crowd thinned out and even less interesting now.

“Eliza, the girl who gives me stuff from the clothing drive. She’s…” Everything he can never have, everything he’s already given up on, everything he missing. Everything he’s lost. An active reminder that the moment he got into Washington’s car the flow of his life was forever changed, and active reminder that maybe if he was still a nice college boy he could ask her to coffee, or dinner. “Nice. She’s nice.”

John seems like he's making it a point to toss his arm over Alex’s shoulder and he wishes he could be thankful for it as he guides him forward, “She sure seems like it.”

Yeah, Alex thinks to himself, letting the heat from John’s body replace the warmth he’d given up from the scarf and tries to dash all the conflicted thoughts rising deep inside him. Especially as John’s arm tightens a fraction around him as he wraps one of his own around his waist to keep them in proper step.

He does his damnedest to keep their breakfast uneventful, even if he flicks toast bits to Lafayette as he flirts with the waitress and if John stole bacon from his plate and he elbowed him in the side. It felt so painfully, fantastically normal. Like he could go home and drop a to-go box full of pancakes for Mulligan on the counter and wait for him to swing home for lunch, like he could tear up the scrap of paper he’d scribbled down the hotels name on and flush it and pretend like he’d never met George Washington.

* * *

 

Alex gets that first part done, though, right up to the box waiting for the fourth to get his ass home and goes straight from there to his room to forget about it all. He gets as far as holding the paper, fingers toying with the edge as he examines his own loopy and slanted handwriting and remembers carefully writing down the name he saw. Meticulously, like he’d risk messing up and getting lost and missing his shot. 

“You’re still going,” John says from the doorway, leaning against it and letting his eyes linger on the paper. It isn’t even a question, and Alex just nods not even looking up at him. Carefully, he folds the paper and sets it on the box that serves as a nightstand, sitting on the edge of his bed.

“I might have--possibly, under both duress and confusion--lied to you.”

“I know.” Again, not a question. John doesn’t move from his place, doesn’t join him or even shift, as far as Alex can hear, past a heavy sigh lifting from his lungs and out past his lips. “I’ve known you for a while, Alex. Just…”

Don’t do something stupid.

Don’t get hurt.

Be safe.

Stop worrying us.

It all lingers in the air around him and he wants to shut him down but instead he just lets his head hang for a moment before he tilts and manages to catch the edge of John’s jaw tensing and him swallowing. “I got called in for another shift at the ER, so…”

“Have fun, nurse Laurens,” the humor sounds forced even to Alex’s ears as John brushes through to grab the bag he keeps for exactly this reason. Scrubs, change of clothes--all the things he’d need in a rush.

“Have fun tonight, Alex.”

As much as he wants to, that departure didn't give Alex much time to garner up a response, so instead he watches as John too leaves.

Lafayette drops his hand to the top of Alex’s hair before he vanishes out the door, citing work, as per usual, to steal his nights to make sure his men are being treated properly. Mulligan swings by but it isn’t long until he’s gone too and the sun has set over the horizon and the clock ticks down the minutes until he should leave, until he should tear up the address.

He takes a shower.

He should tear up the address, he shouldn’t go. Washington doesn’t know where he lives, hell he doesn’t even know his goddamn name.

He works himself open with two fingers, swallowing the rising desire to shove his own face into the mattress and relive each and every blurred and beautiful moment of that night. Work. This is work. Alex can keep it business-like, Alex can totally keep it professional. He wears a nicer pair of jeans and a button-up that he spends more time deciding on than he’d like to admit. Professional. His heart is racing in his ears his chest is aching his blood is rushing.

It’s business.

Standing on the stoop, he calls a cab. The driver doesn’t question the address, doesn’t question the neighborhood, doesn’t question Alex. 

It’s nine-forty-one when he walks up the reception desk, palms just a little bit clammy as he tries to tame his breathing into something more manageable. “Hi,” he gives a short wave, half-thankful it’s the man from the previous night instead of someone new and half-wishing it was someone who hadn’t seen him before. He gives a disapproving once-over and Alex stamps down the desire to snap. “I’m early for a… meeting with Mister Washington, he said if he was going to be late or cancel he’d leave a message here?”

Silence reigns and the man slips a key from behind the desk and sets it on the counter, “He made reservations already and did in fact leave a message. Mister Washington will be running late for your... meeting and has said to tell you to make yourself… comfortable.” Disdain laces each word in a way to make Alex’s lip curl and his brow twitch above his eye but he snatches up the key none the less. “Thanks.”

Be nice. Be good. Be nice. Be Good. He repeats the words like a mantra again and again to keep his blood pressure down. Be good. Be nice. He only notices it’s the same room when he steps inside, careful not to slam the door behind him he takes it in again. It was just as stunning as before and he’s pretty sure he can make out the streaks on the mirror above the bed where housekeeping would’ve cleaned up the spit and print of Alex’s face. Fuck. Get comfortable, right? He kicks off his shoes, debating for a moment before stripping down to his boxer-briefs and sprawling over the expanse of the bed--he hates it but he can really get used to this. Was this why Lafayette does it? Not for the money or the people like he claims but for the luxury? For unreasonably high thread-count sheets and pillows that sink around you and the luscious feel of it all against your skin making you feel like you’re worth something?

No. Laf knows he’s worth it all, he knows he’s worth more than something, he’s worth everything and he knows it. 

“Get it together,” he mumbles to himself, shaking his head as he pushes himself up on his elbows and flops onto his back. On tactical instinct, Alex brought lube and condoms again and he figures it depends on how late Washington plans on being if Alex should get started without him or not. It seemed like he liked watching him fuck himself on his fingers and his teeth catch around his lip as the pads of his fingers brush down over the yellow-green bruises on his hip. He could be punished for being bad, for not waiting like a good boy.

God, that’s tempting. That is so tempting, and Alex’s fingers drag to the front of his underwear as he envisions being bent over Washington’s knee. Heavy hand making it hard for him to sit for a week as he spanks him until he’s choking on sobs, until his ass was throbbing with perfect imprints of Washington’s hands burned red against his skin. He wouldn’t be gentle, Alex hates gentle. He’d throw him into the mattress and fuck him again and again and again and again. He grinds the heel of his palm against his crotch and whimpers, hips tipping up just a bit. God, he wishes it was Washington’s hands, on his sides, his chest, his legs. He wishes it was his hands spreading his thighs open so he can touch him until he’s begging to be allowed to come, begging for just the final burst of  _ anything _ to push him over the edge.

_ Fuck _ , he slips his hand under the elastic and, in the same instant his fingers brush against his cock, he recoils back. No.  _ No. _

He’s not jerking off in a hotel room paid for by George Washington who only got it to come fuck him later. No. Fuck. Alex needs better hobbies, he needs something to focus on that isn’t the burning desire to keep thinking about Washington’s deep voice telling him what a pretty boy he is. He needs something to occupy himself that isn’t his fingertips pushing against the marks left behind hoping he can draw something out of them, some lingering memory or fading echo of hands on him.

Alex needs something to focus on so he doesn’t go mad with anticipation and his eyes fall to his jeans. To the small swell in one of the back pockets where he knew his phone was. Research? It was hardly ten, if Washington really is going to be late he does have time. Feeling a little sly, he leans over the edge of the bed to snatch his phone from the floor and settles back to idly flick through news articles and reports, soaking in as much information as he could in the time he had before the door’s handle turned and pushed open. Washington was holding a second key looking… burned out.

Exhausted. Stress lining the edges of his face and a faint trace of stubble under his jaw that he must have missed shaving, he looked like he’d spent three days in Hell. “At least you’re here,” he says as he sets the key down and bumps the door shut behind him. From the ashes of exhaustion in his eyes, Alex can see a spark starting to smolder as he rakes his dark gaze down Alex’s body from his hair in a low bun to where his ankles crossed as he sat up, reading. 

“I told you I would be,” He says, not as quiet and demure as he should’ve been. But he was tense too, he’d read all of what he could on the recent dealings of Patriot Industries and now he the CEO is practically consuming him with a look. “How was France?”

“It was… well,” His fingers work on the knot of his tie and he casts another look towards where Alexander lays. He shifted to look as appealing as he could, lying on his side with his head propped on his hand, the other draped over his hip. The muscle in Washington’s jaw works for a moment before he looks away to focus on undressing. “How did you know I was in France?”

“Research. Did you close the deal?”

“What sort of research? And no, and that’s not confidential in case you’re looking for some story to sell.” Alex was taken aback, as the heat in Washington’s eyes dies back to something cold.  _ What _ ? Did he really think Alex was trying to get a story from him? 

“I wanted to say you shouldn’t because it’s an unstable business you’ll be tying yourself to. I know they helped to fund PI’s company start-up but that doesn’t mean that you owe them. Hell, anyone else should be able to see that the company you’re trying to help doesn’t have half a mind where it’s going and you should stay away from it until it does,” he snaps, sharp and fast and never like he has to a client before. Washington stops and Alex maps out the fastest way to get his clothes and fuck off once he’s kicked out. His hands are hovering above the top button of his shirt, lingering as time itself seems to freeze around them. “Like I said,” he’s gone quiet and soft, shrinking back against the mountain of pillows as that calculating stare makes him feel a million times smaller than his large frame ever had before. “Research.”

“How do you figure all of this?” He lacks the rumbling heat his voice used to hold but at least it isn’t sharp, it isn’t angry or snide. It’s curious, genuinely curious as he strips from his shirt and starts on his belt instead.

Alex hesitates, scooting so he’s sitting up with his legs crossed, “I just looked more into them. It wasn’t hard, I did it fairly recently.” He did it an hour ago.

His hands pull his belt through the loop and for a fleeting, thrilling, moment Alex wonders if he’ll hit him with it. But he drops it instead and sheds his suit pants to climb into the bed beside him, dropping a condom and the lube onto the sheets as he moves. “I’ll consider what you’ve said…” He draws off brows knitting together. "You've never given your name."

“Alexander. My name is Alexander.”

“Alexander?” He hates his full name, too much a biting reminder of his father, but from Washington’s lips it sounds like music. “In that case, I’ll consider it, Alexander. But for now, I have come from a very stressful business venture and would very much like it if you would ride my cock like a good whore instead of a brilliant young thing.”

Brilliant?

He swallows back the compliment and nods, he shouldn’t have overstepped his boundaries like that. He should have ignored Lafayette, should have kept jerking it instead of doing his research. There are so many things he should have done as he nods once more and Washington shifts onto his back to let Alex straddle him. “Sorry, sir. I shouldn’t have--”

“Hush, my boy. You’re fine, I’m just far too tired of discussing work.” His palms sweep up the length of Alex’s thighs, thumbs slipping up the legs of his boxer-briefs and rubbing idly as his soft skin. “I wasn’t able to stop thinking about you--about how good you felt, how hot and tight you were. I wanted to remember every sound you made, the exact way you cried out when you came.” His fingers creep higher and higher until they duck under the band and pull the elastic down enough to free Alex’s half-hard cock. Washington takes him in a loose grip with one hand, stroking him softly as the fingers of his other hand drags up and down his leg. “I imagined you, with me, in the hotel. How I would take you in the shower and let you get on your knees for me and shove my cock down your perfect throat and watch you take it like a good boy. I imagined your face against the glass as I held you against the window and fucked you in sight of the Eiffel Tower, how you’d groan and whimper so perfectly for me.”

Alex was groaning now, his head tilted back as the hand works him to a full hardness. Shit. Business really has flown out the window and now the window was shut and locked so it can’t come back in.

“Would you like me to finger you? Open you up so you can take my cock hard and fast and rough like I know you want it?” Washington’s nails bite hard into Alex’s thigh as he asked, dragging down to make him shiver and he shook his head sharply, breath coming a little sharper as his hips twitch with desire to roll forward into his hands.

“No, I did it already for you, sir. Before I left, before I got here.” He doesn’t want to check the clock and think about how long it’s been but he wants it to burn. He wants to do something irresponsible and stupid and feel the ache all the way home. “Please, sir. Let me just ride you,” The fire had come back to Washington’s eyes with a vengeance. Licking its way out to burn at Alexander; the flames in his gaze was consuming him already, taking him apart and putting him back together again as Alex’s delicate fingers fell over the hand that dropped from his cock and drags it up to his hips. The fingers fit so perfectly over the old bruises.

“I broke the rules,” Washington says simply, looking at them with no clear regret. 

“I want you to break them again. I want you to break me, sir.” Thick fingers tighten and Washington’s other hand drifts up to pull off the tie that holds Alex’s hair in place, letting it tumble down his neck so he can twist his fingers into the dark waves. He moves sharp, fast and stronger than Alex would’ve thought and he’s forced to muffle a stinging cry as he’s dragged down by his hair. Down, down until their noses brush against one another and he could feel hot breath washing over his lips and see, up close, the flickering and red-hot fire in Washington’s dark gaze. “How many rules am I allowed to break?”

His lips aren’t moving right. Alex tries to summon up the words but his lips are so fucking close and he can see the way his gaze shifts from eye to eye then down to Alex’s lips and he is the definition of a broken man as he sinks down and seals their lips together. 

Washington kisses like he fucks: hard and rough and so full of promise. He’s tongue and lips and teeth and he keeps one hand in Alex’s hair but the other cups his chin to keep him in place. It’s filthy, a slide of wet muscle against his own and he swallows down Alex’s soft whimpers and slipped moans like a drowning man taking his first welcomed breath of oxygen. Like Alex is some drug he just can’t get enough of and the hand on his face tightens for just a moment when he tries to withdraw before releasing.

Sharp teeth catch Alex’s lip as he pulls away, dragging back and drawing a shiver down the length of his spine he could stay there forever if it wasn’t for the insistent erection pressing against his ass. He tries to memorize the little groan that slips past Washington’s lips as Alex grinds back against it slowly, corners of his mouth tugging into a smile. His lips sting and tingle and he knows they’re going to be kiss-bruised and swollen but it just adds to the thrill, the thrill of being wanted so badly. So deeply. 

He pulls back to sit up, to rock his hips against Washington’s clothed cock as he drags the tips of his fingers along the powerful chest beneath him. Dark, soft skin drags hot against his fingers as he feels the muscles flex solid under his touch. He drags down his chest, over his abdomen until he can find the perfect place to rest as Alex rocks steadily against the hardness under him. “Stop teasing, Alexander, you will regret it.”

Oh will he now? He ruts back once. Twice. It’s the third time that sparks gasoline into Washington’s flames and the man pushes himself up. Alex hardly has the time to regret it before he’s shoved back down onto his back and the massive frame of a man hovers above him, slotted perfectly between his legs as he breathes hot against Alex’s ear. “Do not say that I didn’t warn you.” His voice is hardly anything besides a vicious, dirty snark against him and it rushes straight to his dick as he nods weakly. 

Nails find his sides and carve pretty pink lines against his skin, down his thighs. His teeth catch Alex’s ear lobe for a moment and he didn’t that make him twist and whimper out a weak, “Yes.” 

“Yes, what?” He asks with a voice made of shattered glass.

God, his breath catches hard in his throat where it wraps around his heart, “Yes, sir.”

A rough chuckle fills the room and the space around him as hot lips come to brush under his ear and then drop down to bite high on his throat. It won’t mark but God does Alex wish that it would. “Good boy,” he breathes as he tugs back at the last scrap of clothing Alex has on. He lifts his hips obediently to help him take it off. “You were almost bad, almost disobedient. And do you know what bad boys don’t get?” He tosses the garment over his shoulder, leaving Alex exposed hard and desperate, and he shakes his head. “They don’t get fucked, they don’t get cock shoved so deep up their ass they’re choking on it. Do you wanna be fucked, baby, do you wanna be good for me?”

He nods, another curling shiver racing up his spine at the pet name. He wants to be fucked, he’s aching to be fucked. “Lemme hear you say it.”

Breath shuddering in a whimper, Alex tries to sink back into the bed. This time Washington can see his flush, can see him bite his lip as he contemplates his words in ways he rarely does. “Well?” Washington prods, brow arched as he pulls back just a fraction. Alex responds to that, leg swinging up over his hips to pull him closer, to drag him down against him again. “I wanna be fucked. I want you to shove your fat cock in me so hard I can’t remember my own name. I want you to bite me and bruise me and-and fuck me. I want you to to whatever you want, bend me over, push me down, I want you to fuck me until I’m crying until I’m covered in sweat and come like a filthy, trashy little hooker,” his voice cracks and his chest heaves and his eyes screw shut. “I wanna be your little slut, please, sir, please let me be your little slut. Please, please.”

Fingers brush gently against the violent lines on his thigh, making Alex quiver in response to the needling of pain and arousal, “You’re such a good little whore, Alex. Listen to yourself, you’re so needy and desperate. Gagging for it like a proper, pretty little slut should.”

He wiggles a little under him, whine catching in his throat before trickling down as a moan past his lips. “Please, sir.” He echoes like a scratched disk, need filling him far more than anything else and he watches hungrily as Washington leans back and draws out the process of putting on the condom until Alex’s legs tighten around him and he’s hanging on the brink of begging for it again. Washington doesn’t understand,  he doesn't understand how badly he needs this. Echoes of John’s heat and Eliza’s smile fight through the haze in his mind whenever Washington isn’t talking or touching him and he can’t handle them. He can’t handle how badly he disappoints them all over and over and over again, he needs someone to make him forget.

He needs Washington.

Alex hitches his legs higher, up to his ribcage as Washington pulls himself closer and guides his slickened cock towards Alex’s waiting entrance. He teases, he presses, not enough to breach him but enough for Alex to throw his head back harder against the bed, before sliding away to rut slowly against him and he needs him. He needs him inside him, he needs him to flood Alex’s senses with something raw and all-encompassing. “I’m a good boy, please, pleasepleaseplease, I’m being such a good boy, I promise. I won’t be bad, I’ll be so good for you, please, I need it,” he pleads with him, fingers scrambling for purchase against his arms as he clings with one hand to his bicep. The other is fisting in the sheets with a peaking desperation and Washington lines back up to press again, lips curling into a satisfied smile. 

Pressure builds and builds and Alex’s back arches with a loud and sharp cry as Washington doesn’t stop pushing deeper and deeper inside him until his hips brush the backs of his thighs and it hurts. It hurts and Alex can’t think of anything else, not the ragged, uneven breathing he’s only half-sure is coming from himself. He can’t think of the way his cock throbs with need and the way Washington’s hand hooks back under one of his thighs to pull it higher. He can’t think of how happy he’ll be to have those bruises.

He can’t think.

He doesn’t think. White crackles in the corners of his mind like static and eats at everything except feeling.

He loves it, he loves it so much, words dribbling down from his lips as his jaw stays slack and his eyes roll back. “Thank you, thank you, I’m your whore, I’m your slut, thank you, sir, thank youthankyouthankyou.” The cock inside him moves, thrusting into him with short and sharp movements that build to hard and long thrusts that rock and shake him to his core and shatter his frayed mind into a thousand tiny pieces. Somewhere over the rush of his blood he can hear Washington’s grunts of effort and sharp, heavy groans and compliments. But it all sounds underwater, distant and dulled and he can pick up “Good boy” and “tight,” and “hot” and “slut” and if Alex had the capabilities to be creative he could string them together but all he can focus on in the feeling. The heat bursting from inside him to eat through his nerves and the skin down to boil Alex’s bones.

Each hard and rough thrust stokes his flame more and more as the hand not holding his thigh slips up Alex’s sweat-slicked body and comes to rest above his collar. Yes, god. Please. Yes, Alex’s fingers snap from his arm to his hand to pull it up to his throat. Choke him.

He needs it.

He wants it.

“Please,” he croaks, breath stuttered by the brutal thrusts and the tears already welling in the corners of his eyes, “please, please choke me. I’ll be so good, please. God, please, Daddy, choke me.”

The world around them collapses. Time itself freezes and grinds to a halt as the world ceases spinning and Alex can’t figure out what’s wrong. He can’t catch up and figure out why the cock inside him stopped until the hands on him pull back, retreating from the front line with nothing but a chill left behind. Confused and watery eyes open and fixate on the unreadable figure above him.

“What,” Washington says with a cool, level voice, “did you call me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost there! Only two chapters left and I hope you're all enjoying the ride as much as I am (and Alex is). Glad I don't have to move anything else around quite yet but Look at That! We have a deeper insight as to who Washington is now! Sorta... kinda...
> 
> And!! There is a strong possibility of after this there being a complimentary piece to examine Lafayette's as an escort, his service, as well as his friendship with Washington and his relationship with the mysterious and suave John Andre...
> 
> Alex's friends all represent something about how he views both relationships as well as himself, if you'd like to talk more in depth about it find me @ the usual places:  
> [Tumblr](http://www.nimravinedae.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/nimravinedae)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little slip up leads to far more than Alex had anticipated as things come to a head in other aspects of his relationships.

_“Please,” he croaks, breath stuttered by the brutal thrusts and the tears already welling in the corners of his eyes, “please, please choke me. I’ll be so good, please. God, please, Daddy choke me.”_

_The world around them collapses. Time itself freezes and grinds to a halt as the world ceases spinning and Alex can’t figure out what’s wrong. He can’t catch up and figure out why the cock inside him stopped until the hands on him pull back, retreating from the front line with nothing but a chill left behind. Confused and watery eyes open and fixate on the unreadable figure above him._

_“What,” Washington says with a cool, level voice, “did you call me?”_

* * *

Alex’s heart stops, stutters starts and stops again all in the space it takes him to realize what he’d said. Oh God, oh God no. No, no, no, shitfuckshitshit, no. His breath was coming short and sharp and he was counting all the exits to the room and how fast he could wiggle free to escape from this embarrassment and burning shame growing and puddling hot in his gut. But Washington’s eyes were still on him, hard and focused and Alex could feel his lungs compressing under the weight of his gaze and even as he opens his mouth to answer he can’t find a lie, can't think of some way to bullshit his way out of this. So instead he shrinks back, trying to sink lower into the mattress and hope the world would open and swallow him whole. He can't even look in Washington's direction, eyes slipping away and shutting tightly.

“I-I-I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to--I didn’t. I wasn’t,” This was it. This was the End. Alex chews his lip and half-curls in on himself before Washington’s hand comes down to his collar again to stop him, pressing his back flat against the bed, the rough pads of his fingers dragging along the jutting bone. Like he was contemplating something, but Alex couldn't tame or re-start his mind fast enough to consider what it could be.

“Say it again,” there’s something new to his voice, something darker and deeper and more raw than Alex had heard from him before. His skin prickles and burns under the touch dragging up to the side of his throat right over his jackrabbit pulse.

It takes him a moment before Alex can let his lip go to answer, shaky and uneven, “Daddy?”

With a painstakingly slow and meticulous pace, Washington’s long, thick and heavy fingers wrap loosely around Alex’s throat, leaving his palm smooth against his skin. He’s already lacking air and he’s hardly touched him, but Washington shifts forward and Alex can feel, only noticing now, that the man is  _still hard._ He swallows against the warm palm, opening his eyes to look at him--look at how his jaw clenches and his eyes are hard and hot and heavy and his heart skips nine beats. “Now tell me again," the voice, burning like melted sugar dripping down his skin, "what did you want daddy to do to you?”

Oh, oh God. Alex's hand drags to wrap his fingers around Washington’s wrist--holding his hand steady against the exposed column of his throat, soft and willing, “Will you choke me, daddy? Pretty please? I promise I'll be good.” For a moment he doesn’t move, still stopped deep inside of Alex, his hand still pressing just light enough against him not to impede his airflow. The hand that had dropped from Alex’s thigh when Washington let go of him comes to settle around his hip, digging his fingers high onto his unmarred skin and bring him closer, driving him deeper.

The grip around Alex’s throat tightens and for a moment, for a blissful and euphoric moment, it’s the only thing he can feel. He see Eliza’s smile or John’s eyes or feel Lafayette’s hands or hear Hercules's voice. Just Washington’s wide and strong touch cutting off the flow of life to his brain for a few, sweet and short moments before he releases him so Alex can suck in a breath and a half before he cuts him off again. Nothing but static, nothing but the wild beating of his heart in his ears, nothing but the fire under his skin. Nothing but Washington’s cock moving deep and hard inside him.

Somewhere past the rush of blood in his veins and the strained and choked pants and moans he gives between tight squeezes, he thinks he can hear Washington. Still talking as each brutal and punishing thrust rocks Alex farther up the bed and farther past his ability to think and rationalize, grunting out compliments and praise enough to make Alex’s blood rush high with adrenaline and appraisal. "Such a pretty little bitch for daddy, aren't you? A pretty, fine little slut spread out for me, taking my cock like you were made to. You sweet, tight little whore, so hot for me, so pretty. So hard for daddy like the skank you are."

He's allowed to breathe again and he takes in a long, shaken breath before responding in kind, "I'm your little skank, please don't stop daddy, please. Harder--I need it h-harder, I need, I need, please daddy please, please fuck me. Fuck me, fuck me so hard, I'll be so good, I'll be such a good boy for you--God, daddy--please!"

Eventually--what could have been a moment, an hour, a decade, eight lifetimes all rolled into one--Washington’s hand slips from his hip up to wrap around Alex’s cock.

He presses down with his other hand just enough that Alex can wheeze in lungfuls of airs as he leans in, lips brushing under his ear with a deceptively soft kiss, “Do you wanna come for daddy? Make a mess all over yourself and show me what a filthy little whore you are? Be a good boy for me, baby, be a good slut.”

Breath coming in hiccups and rough, he just barely scrounges up a stuttered, “Yes.”

“Yes _what?_ ’

Hips twisting, hands flexing against the sheets and head tilting back to expose the soft column of his throat he corrects himself, “Yes, daddy. Please, please daddy let me come for you--please, I’m such a good boy, such a good slut. Just for you, daddy, I wanna come just for you.” There’s a growl rippling through him like a tidal wave, crashing and tearing at him and breaking him down to nothingness as Washington’s hand moves with firm, heavy, and fast strokes and fingers curl harder around his neck to press his palm down again and Alex’s vision goes white.

White and then black and for a moment he’s nothing. For a moment he’s lingering in the vastness of oblivion before reality crashes and shatters like spider-webbed glass to his hard arched back and fire searing at every last nerve ending in his body and he can’t even gasp against the lips sealed against his own, sucking the remains of his breath from him in a bruising kiss. He doesn’t know when Washington comes, but he thinks he hears him snarl out his name on the edge of a, "my good boy." But everything sounds so far away and so hard to focus on. He doesn’t know when he lets him breathe again it blurs together with the steady return of his senses one by one. He can't count how many time's soft and warm lips kissed under his eyes or over his cheekbones or along his jaw.

He doesn’t know how long his chest has been hiccuping with sobs that wrack through his body and shake him down to his core or how long it’s been since Washington’s pulled out of him and left him cold and empty. It couldn’t have been long, but time is a concept so far gone to Alex as the bed dips again and something warm and damp drags along his skin. Something solid presses against his back and something comforting whispers in his ear. He twists and clings, clings like a child pressing his face into the crook of Washington's neck and letting himself break into a thousand tiny pieces with a thousand rippling, tiny sobs, letting himself scatter across the carpeting to dig into someone's heel later. Washington lays with him, gentle tips of his fingers running up and down the length of his spine as he adjusts Alex to lie chest to chest.

“You did so good,” he promises, “you are so beautiful, so perfect, so magnificent.” It isn’t comforting, it isn’t comforting as every inch of him aches and throbs and he can still feel the tacky-drying come on his stomach and the slickness of lube between his thighs. His face is a mess, tears and drool and snot and he’s sure he looks disgusting. He is disgusting. He’s disgusting but Washington still tips his chin up anyway, the warm cloth dragging over his cheeks and chin and under his eyes. “You did so good, my boy. My precious, beautiful boy."

Alex does his best not to flinch back from that and instead buries his face in Washington’s chest and takes deep, shaking breaths. “I’m so proud of you, Alexander,” the same fingers that pushed against his windpipe danced along his shoulders, ignoring the way Alex tenses against the use of his name. A reminder, another reminder of how far from business practices he’s strayed. How much danger he’s put himself in, how much he’s given himself over to Washington and let him see parts of himself that were closed off to even John still. Still, he lets himself be sat back up, lets a glass of water he pressed into his still-trembling hands and lets himself drink. It’s warm, not or iced to further aggravate his aching throat, but warm.

“I’m going to take you to the shower now,” Washington says once the cup was placed back on the nightstand. “Get you cleaned up more before I leave.” He waits, like some masquerade of a gentleman, for Alex to nod before he scoops him up in strong, protective arms. He won’t tell him no, he won’t tell him to leave him alone. Alex lets himself be carried instead, lets himself be set on aching, weak legs for the shower to be started and run, because he has already resigned himself to his future, to what he must do. Regardless of how badly it aches his chest, especially as Washington’s hand closes over Alex’s own and urges him gently under the warm spray of water.

He’s going to miss this. Going to miss the luxurious cars, the five-star hotels, going to miss Washington’s touch as it cascades down his body and lathers him in expensive soaps and a gentle touch. Alex wants to deny himself the pleasure of leaning back into it, deny himself the pleasure of the touch but as much as he wants not to, he presses into it. He presses into it and lets Washington respond to that with more touches.

“If it isn’t too personal,” Washington starts: never a good sign, “may I ask where you went to school? You have a deep knowledge of business practices, but you’re quite young, I only assume you’re in college.”

“I did two years of pre-law, majoring in political science, at Columbia before I dropped out,” he twists himself under the spray to wash away the bubbles, the impressed-sounding noise behind him doing very little to help his current situation.

“Two years at Columbia and you’re a prostitute?” There’s awe, there’s confusion. There’s… something else… “Did you drop out because of finances?”

Alex’s teeth grit against his answer, “Yes.”

“I see.”

Thankfully, thankfully, Washington lets the subject drop and Alex feels… fine. Not judged or scrutinized, he feels fine. Content as Washington tilts his head back (despite how he shivers at exposing his neck again) but he’s behind him, his chest pressed against Alex back and slowly, gentle fingers work soap through his hair. From scalp to ends, and Alex damn-near melts into his hands. Goddammit. He really can get used to this and he’s frighteningly close already but he knows what he has to do, knows exactly how to stop himself from being too far gone to ever come back. So what if he enjoys it while he can, if he lets Washington’s hands wander down his skin while Alex rinses his hair out. So what if he likes the strong arms wrapped around his waist and so what if, for the first time ages, he feels safe against him.

Protected.

Like he doesn’t have to expect the worst to happen tonight and maybe that’s because the worst thing he could think of is happening with every soft circle Washington’s fingers rub on his hipbone. He expects the worst: he expects Washington to be gentle.

And he is. He’s gentle when he urges Alex’s head back, when he seals his lips to his neck and doesn’t bruise or bite but drags his tongue to his pulse-point and brushes just the faintest scrape of teeth. He’s gentle when his fingers trace the contours of his lithe body.

"Is this how you imagined the hotel in Paris?" He asks after a few short moments, it earns him a chuckle pressed down to his shoulder and Washington's arms wrapped gentle around his waist.

"No, it isn't. But if you'd wish to re-enact my fantasies here, I'm afraid I'm a little too old to rush back into thinks. You on the other hand, you're still young. I bet we could draw up a new fantasy just for you." He’s gentle as he teases down Alex’s soft cock and then brings them back up his body to turn Alex around to face him.

It strikes him, in a moment, that he’s never been kissed in the rain. That striking cliched moment in every movie or book where the two main characters figured out their differences and they kissed despite the soaking chill and the credits rolled before the hypothermia kicked in. He’s never had that, never had the relationship to build to that moment that didn't splinter beyond repair in the fights beforehand and as Washington kisses him slowly and deeply under the shower spray--it feels like a cheap knockoff of love.

It’s almost ironic, actually, if it wasn’t so fucking sad.

And as sad as it is, Alex can’t tell which is worse, that he’s made the comparison or that he pushes up into the kiss with a sick and deep desperation. That he twines his arms around Washington’s neck and holds him close against himself, that when they part he dips forward for another taste, that he savors the slide of his tongue and tries to commit the little noise of pleasure he makes to memory. Like he can pretend he's something better than a knock-off when he's with Washington, like he can pretend like he's worth something when he's touched so reverently that he can feel the press of fingertips for days. Or simply that he captures their moment in his aching chest and knows he doesn’t have the resolve of character to forget it ever happened--but like all moments it too must end.

Both thoroughly cleaned, Alex turns off the water and slides from the shower, whatever he was going to say dying in his lungs as he catches sight of himself in the mirror. The counter cuts it off right below the rise of his hips, letting him see the mess of red marks over yellowing ones. Bruising and re-bruising the flesh of his hips in more places than he had before all the way up to his rib cage on one side.

He’s a mess of nail marks and promising marks than threaten to stain blue and purple soon enough--but that’s nothing as his eyes follow up and up. His wet hair plasters to his neck as water steadily drips from his body to puddle on the floor and he’ll drop down a towel so no one slips later but right now he’s far too distracted by his kiss-swollen lips and his flushed face and blood-shot eyes. And then, just a twitch of his eyes down--the redness is dark against his skin, spanning his throat in the painfully clear four lines on one side and a large splotch on the other. That’s going to bruise.

Alex’s fingers dance over the edges as Washington appears in the mirror behind him, hands settling on his hips and pressing a kiss just behind his ear. It’s only then that he can really see how small he is in comparison. Small compared to his muscular frame, small compared to his height. “You’re beautiful,” he whispers softly before taking two towels from the rack and--for the first time--he believes him. 

“I can’t stay,” Alex says, abrupt and shattering the otherwise perfect moment they’ve forged from their touches and kisses and gentle teasing. “I told my roommates I’d be home.” He’s lying. He’s a terrible liar and Washington wraps the towel around Alex none the less--something in his glance down to him calculating and Alex feels pretty fucking transparent.

He grunts out an assent and presses another kiss to the back of his neck anyway though, “Don’t leave before I get a chance to pay you.”

“Don’t.” He says, sharp and hot, before he actually registers the words coming out of his mouth. “Do _not_ fucking pay me for this, just don’t.” Alex towel-dries his hair as he walks around the partition back towards the bed. His hair-tie is on the floor and he scoops it up to fasten back his damp hair, trying his best to ignore the footsteps behind him.

“And exactly why shouldn’t I? You clearly need the--”

“Again, don’t. Don’t start with that I need the money bullshit because I don’t, I crossed a line tonight and I shouldn’t have. You crossed a line tonight, we both made mistakes and I can’t take your money for this I just can’t, alright?” He snaps back over his shoulder as he pulls back on his underwear, the burning adrenaline in his blood keeping the hot edge of pain away as he focuses on just this--on just getting away. Running away.

God, he can still feel his eyes on his back, following each fast and jerky motion Alex gave before he finally spoke again. Cold. Hard. “I wasn’t aware I wronged you so badly, Alexander.”

For _fucks_ sake. He throws the button up on the bed, rounding on him for a moment like he can take him as rage floods through his body, “You didn’t and that’s the problem. I can’t get used to shit like this, I can’t get used to nice hotels or aftercare or being kissed or being bruised or being marked. It’s supposed to be business, I’m supposed to stay detached it’s the only way you survive doing what I do.”

There’s another painful, lingering silence. Washington stares at him, cool and collected compared to Alex’s unbridled flames. “I see. I didn’t mean to cross any boundaries with you but wouldn’t not letting me pay you only aggravate your problem?”

His problem.

 _His_ problem.

As if Washington had nothing to do with it, as if it wasn’t his name Alex had begged out and his hands he’d pressed harder against him. His problem? His problem that he's feeling less and less like a prostitute and more like a shitty stereotype from some god-awful movie. And not taking his money would make it worse--does make it worse--but he isn't about to change heel now. God, why the fuck did he have to make such a good point? “I just need to think, okay? I don’t want, I can’t let myself--”

I can’t let myself want you like I already do.

I can’t let myself crave your touch like I already do.

I can’t let myself dream about you like I have been.

“I understand. When you have finished your contemplation, should you find them in my favor, call the hotel. They’ll get back to me,” Washington shifts, his towel still wrapped around his waist, the red color contrasting nicely with his skin that makes Alex wish he could take back everything he said, take the money and agree to meet him again. But he can’t--or he won’t. “For what it may be worth to you, Alexander, I truly meant what I said.”

He doesn’t even stop to ask what that means. He finishes up the last few buttons having finally shrugged his shirt back on, grabs his phone from the floor and leaves.

This time he gets looks from the driver, curled with a wince in the backseat with blood-shot eyes and bruises blossoming around his throat but he doesn’t care, he’s too tired to care. The drive seems longer than it should be and he’s thankful he had least brought some cash with him since he didn’t take Washington’s money so he shoves it at the driver who, after a few quick glances up and then down and then up again mutters something about how he, “thinks there’s a hotline or somethin’ for that.” And Alex really doesn’t feel like explaining himself to the dude so he doesn’t.

He climbs from the back and limps slowly up to the apartment, raucous laughter bubbling from under the door and almost surprising him. John must be home. So must Lafayette and Herc, he figures as he nudges the door open, head ducked to hide himself. Lafayette was clearly caught up in some new story of some client of his, laughter ringing warm through the tiny apartment and--were it any other night--Alex would revel in the sounds and the warmth. But his stomach sinks and bile rises as instead, Gil offers a sharp whistle from where he sits and a warm, “Alexander! And here I thought we wouldn’t be seeing you until Monday, well, later Monday.”

“Hey! Look who’s home, the little sugar-baby himself. And here I thought you would’ve been sittin’ pretty in the lap of lux… ur… y,” Hercules playful taunt teeters to nothing as he looks over the back of the couch, a playful gleam in his eyes replaced with a hard ice. The rest of the laughter dies around him and sits like a heavy echo of irony. He’s teary eyed still, from the way home, from regret and pain and indecision and knowing what he should do versus what he wants to do.

“Did he do that to you?” John and Lafayette remain frozen on the couch, Lafayette looking aghast at the state Alexander was in, John looking… wrathful. Murderous. About the same as Hercules did as the muscle in his jaw clenched tight and he rounded the couch to hover his hands helplessly around Alex like he could mend him. “It’s not what you think,” he whispers, eyes fixated on the laces of Herc’s shoes. “I… it’s not. I promise.”

Herc brushes against Alex’s shoulder lightly, testing the waters to see if he’d flinch and he doesn’t, not even close. Alex remains perfectly still as he looks up at him, “This isn’t--he didn’t. He didn’t hurt me, at least, not in a way I didn’t ask, I swear, Herc. I just…” He trails off as his eyes slide to John, where Herc’s ice had faded to a familiar caring warmth, Johns remained cold. Dangerously so and the last time Alex had seen that look on him, Alex had been roughed up a little too much by a client and John responded to that by finding the guy and beating him until he was begging for mercy. “I lied, John, it wasn’t about business anymore. It wasn’t for a while and I’m sorry.”

Lafayette had finally stood and, suddenly, Alex was reminded that he knew Washington. He knew his tastes and his preferences but judging by the way his eyes raked over Alex and fixated on what would surely be a nasty bruise around his throat, he didn’t know quite that side of him either. Alex shrunk back from his friends intense gazes, the way they slowly moved towards him like he was a wounded animal ready to lash out and--in a way--he was. “Don’t call him, Gil. Don’t… say anything about this.”

“If you wish me not to, then I shall not. But, mon ami, I must ask: are you alright?”

“I’m fine. I swear, I didn’t even let him pay me tonight. It was intense and personal I just need time to think about if I’m going to see him again.”

This time it was John who spoke up. John with his sharp voice and rusted-dagger edge so full of raw emotion that he tries so hard to conceal, taught to hide his emotions behind a patriarchal rage, “Like hell you’re seeing him again. For fucks sake, Alexander look at yourself. You’re… you’re… _fuck!”_

“John,” Lafayette warns, reaching for him the same time Herc clips a sharp, “Jacky-boy,” at him. A warning, as John's gasoline-on-fire rage builds to consume, but it doesn't douse his rising temper that Alex can see burning hotter than ever, building not at him but around him like he could make walls of fire to stop anyone from ever laying a hand on him again.

“Don't you do this to me now, Hell no. Not right now, back off, guys, just seriously--look at him. How is this okay? How is that okay? How aren’t we all crammed into Gil’s stupid fucking compact on our way to go kick this guys ass right now? He _hurt_ Alexander and we’re just going to let that slide," He rounds on Alex, pointing at him directly, "I don’t care who this fucking guy is if he lays a hand on you one more time, I’m breaking every bone in his goddamn body twice. Jesus Christ, this is why I didn't want you to see him tonight anyway, Alex. I knew he was bad for you, I knew he was going to do this and I'm going to  _fucking kill him."_  

Something crawls out from under Alex's skin. Something angry and pained and ready to start a fight on behalf of the man he's just sworn to himself to leave behind for good, “Are you even fucking listening to me? Seriously, John take a step back and for once in your life get your head out of our ass; he hurt me because I asked him to, because I _begged_ him to because I _like being hurt_ , you asshole. I wasn’t aware what gets me off in bed was going to be a huge fucking deal, but here we are. Would you like me to lay out every kink I have bed, John? Should I make a list so you can check me over like always--like I need you to look after me, like you're my fucking boyfriend or something?" He doesn't see the way John falls half a step back. The way he looks so stricken and hurt. He's too blinded by red and rage and fury and works he knows he'll regret as soon as he says them. "For fucks sake, I came home _because_ I liked it not because I was scared or-or hurt or because I wanted John _Fucking_ Lauren's to come to my rescue for all the battles he doesn't _have_ to fight. I came home because I like him _too much_ , not because he did what I _asked_ and choked the shit out of me, because he took care of me, because he kissed me.”

The last sentence echoes in the silence of the room, like the prelude to the crack that snaps and thunders around them as John shoulders past  and slams the door behind him when he leaves.

“Alex…”

“I’m going to bed, Hercules. Gil. Night.” He brushes past them, silently stalking to the back bedroom. Something inside him strains against the thin strings holding him together once the door is pressed shut, it weighs heavy on fraying ropes until--all at once--they snap and whatever was held back comes tumbling to the light. Alex tears the books from makeshift shelves and piles, toppling papers and notes and sending them scatting over the shared floor rage running rampant and loose and free until he's left in center of a whirlwind the winds of his fury snapping through him like a hurricane harboring nothing but destruction until one particular paper flutters down from a shelf at his feet. Like fate.

He picks up the scrap, fingers brushing the name and phone number of the hotel with a gentle hand, following every swoop and tilt and curve of the letters before sinking down to the numbers instead. He could call, he could call and tell them to send an emergency message up to the room, to Washington wherever he is and tell him to get him. To come find him and bring him away from everything and hide him where no one could find him. His fingers find the edges of the scrap and he tears it in half. And then again. And then again and again and again until he's breathing too hard and too fast and shouldering open the half-rusted and unused window to let the winds scatter the remains all along New York City. 

Gone.

Totally gone.

No more confliction, no more pain, no more pleasure. No more sitting awake as his alarm clocked informed him it was ticking well into three in the morning, no more sitting on his bed with the window open and the wind bristling his skin with his head hanging low and John’s bed empty. No more curling up in his blankets and wishing he’d made a different choice.

Nope.

No more.

He doesn’t sleep. He lies there, eyes fixated on the wall by his bed as he tries to count the amount of mistakes he’s made that night alone before the number climbs well beyond his reach and far, far past that. He’d laugh if it wasn’t so fucking sad.

John comes home well after the sun rises and Alex stiffens but doesn’t say anything. Not as John hesitates at the edge of Alex’s bed, standing there looking at him as he pretends to sleep with such a heavy sense of contemplation that Alex is tempted to just sit up and ask him _what the fuck is wrong with you?_ To ask him to forget all the things they said and climb in bed next to him he used to and run his fingers through Alex’s hair and tell him he’s going to go back to college and be the best goddamn lawyer in the world just like he used to. To let him rest his head on John's chest and remember that no matter what they'd always be best friends. They'd always have each others back no matter what the world through at them.

But eventually, inevitably, he sinks back to his own bed and Alex would like to pretend he’s only so intently caring because he’s a nurse. Because he’s supposed to _fix_ people, it’s what he _does._ If only he could realize he couldn’t fix Alex, he thinks to himself, waiting for his breathing to even into soft, half-snores before he turns on his other side to look at him.

He’s going to have a black eye in the morning. A bruise already forming on his jaw and his hand resting protectively over his ribs. Alex knows he didn’t go looking for Washington, John's impulsive, not stupid. He knows he went out, just looking for a fight and, well, it looks like he got one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy was that a doozy, eh? Well hey, at least there's only one more chapter left... surely Alex can fix this all by Friday... 
> 
> This chapter was written listening to "Twin Skeletons" by FOB on repeat and eventually I'll make a playlist of music that inspired this, but I'll just leave you with this: "There's a room in a hotel in New York City, that shares our fate and deserves our pity..."
> 
> (also all your comments and kudos and messages always make my day <3 I'm so glad you've stuck around this long and suffered with me)
> 
> Questions/Concerns/Screams should all be directed to my [Tumblr](http://www.nimravinedae.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/nimravinedae)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex makes amends that are past overdue.

The morning comes faster than Alex would have liked it to have--it swings forward full steam and the world refuses to stop spinning even for a moment despite how much Alex wants to beg it to. Wants it to stop for a breath and calm the fuck down so he can think for once. He tries to prioritize from his bed but it doesn't work. He's got a job to do in the afternoon and a best friend who wont even speak to him and a heart torn to shreds and then tossed out the window with those scraps of paper. So maybe he can prioritize them. 

Fixing things with John is usually easy, usually Alex can just swing down to the corner store the day after a fight, pick up a case of cheap beer like a peace offering. John would pout and roll his eyes but he would take it and they’d spend an evening lounging on the couch ignoring the lingering bitterness until it fades down and away. But Alex spent a solid twenty minutes lying on his back aware that he can’t fix this one like he did the rest of their pathetic squabbles--his head cleared enough for him to acknowledge what happened the night before.

John was trying to protect him; he didn’t know what Alex had wanted from Washington and he didn’t know what happened in that hotel room that made him so edgy and touchy and Alex couldn’t blame him forever. All he saw as Alex, bruised and back to the verge of tears again with a hand print around his throat and despite how misguided and presumptuous he was he was still Alex’s best friend.  John needed space to cool and Alex needed to get himself together for work. It was hanging on the edge of mid-afternoon when he decided to leave, a little earlier than usual, with his jacket tugged up over his bright blue shirt and khakis. He keeps his chin down to fight against the rising chill and his hands stuffed in his pockets to keep his fingers warm as he ducks from the cracked apartment building that’s been so goddamn quiet all morning. 

He just hopes he won’t see her--he doesn’t know if he could handle that. He doesn’t know if he could handle her soft eyes and brilliant smile and lovely voice, not when he’s still so shaken to his core and his bruises are still less than a day old. He wants her to be gone, to not have to see him like this, he can’t taint her. Can’t ruin what he has there the same way he ruined what he has--had--with John. Can’t ruin his one tentative friendship he had left, the one string he had keeping him bound down to this world so he didn’t simply float into nothing. She was like a rock, a rope. His piece of mind in all this mayhem.

And he bites his lip, listening to the chatter as he passes the church he hopes whatever bake sale they're pushing now is missing one angel from on high--but there’s the click of determined heels behind him and the sun seems to shine brighter and she sounds so perfect, “Hey! I think this is the most I’ve seen of you recently.” 

He almost doesn’t stop, almost doesn’t turn around but he’s weak--she makes him weak, in the best of ways and he turns around just in time to see her smile slip from her face like water off of glass and her eyes go cold and hard all at once and this is it.  Goodbye Elizabeth Schuyler, nice to know you, nice to have you in his life. God, she’s even wearing the scarf he gave her, matching perfectly with her dress and tucked under her hair. He could cry, he could literally cry.

But he doesn’t. “Hey, ‘Liza. How’s the bake sale?”

“What the fuck happened to you?” 

Ouch. Swearing from the church-girl, Alex didn’t even bother biting back his comment on that one, lips curling into what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “It’s nothing. The perils of when I’m not busy working retail,” he promises but she doesn’t look amused, assured or at all like she’s going to do what he hopes and turn around and walk back to her pretty, perfect, cookie-cutter church friends. Instead her expression hardens more and Alex feels himself bow under it quickly.  “A client gave it to me--a, ah, night-time client. It’s fine though, I promise. It’s all… dealt with,” he didn’t need her getting impressions that he likes to be choked and smacked around in bed. Even if they were right, but still even with the half-truth he still shrinks back under her gaze. It was like she and Washington had developed the same skill at seeing right through each ounce of bullshit he had in his body.

“You’re going to work now?”

“Yeah, uh,” he opens the jacket a little, name-tag pinned to his blue shirt, “the legitimate job, though. Promise.”

She scrutinizes him, looking through him in ways not even reserved for John or Lafayette or Herc. It was like she was searching out the divots of his soul just through her gaze, “Well come on. You can’t go to work looking like you just lost a fight in a bar, your complexion is a little darker than mine--and I didn't even bring my bag--so just… follow me.”

Regardless of how badly he wants to flee, he follows her at her heel instead, brow furrowing in confusion, “What are you talking about? I’ll tell them I got mugged or something, it’ll be fine.”

But she hushes him none the less, snagging a cookie from the table and passing it to him, “Eat this and shut up, Alex. I’m here to help.”

He shuts up, he eats it. It’s good, he has to admit. He's whipped by a girl he isn't even seeing but he doesn't care. Instead, he busies himself watching as Eliza approaches a girl looking a couple years younger than her and points back at him. He waves with half a smile, and she waves back with a wider one and he maybe feels a little less cynical about the crowd of people around him. A little less like he doesn’t belong and he feels like it has something to do with Eliza as she takes his arm and holds a bag in her other hand. She guides him to a bench, around a corner and far away from the group, and sits him down. Her eyes are back on him contemplating him again as he finishes off the cookie and wipes crumbs on his worn jeans.

“You’ve got a lighter skin tone than Peggy, but this should work. She’s got plenty of stuff in here that should help, as long as you don’t bring a whole bunch of attention to it, you know?” She digs around in the bag for a few moments before coming out with a compact and his nose wrinkles.

“Are you putting make-up on me?”

“Yes.” She says, breezily and smooth, as she pulls more things Alex really doesn’t recognize out of the bag and starts to move, “now tilt your head back.” He watches for a moment as she brushes something red over the back of her hand and mixes it in with a cream, mesmerized before she repeats, “Head. Back, Alex.”

With a voice like that, loving and firm, how can he say no? Alex lets his head fall back and tries not to flinch as she lightly dabs some of the cream mixture on the darker parts of his throat and spreads it to a thin smear. “What’s that?” 

“Lipstick and concealer, just believe me. It works.”

He waits, waits until she’s done and she’s fishing through the bag for something else before he finally asks the burning question on his mind, “why do you know how to cover up bruises on the fly, Eliza?”

It doesn’t phase her, not even a little bit, in fact, she hardly registers it as she pulls out a larger tub of something--a clear powder. “Ang, my oldest sister, taught me to cover up love-bites when we were younger, and I have a friend who’s been having a rather hard time with a boyfriend. He’s… not a very nice man. She deserves better even if she doesn’t think so, you might know her, he has her work street corners around here sometimes. Maria?”

His chest aches for a moment, he's seen her. Talked to her, watched her examine her split lip in her compact mirror and had her brush off his concerns and stand away on her own. He's also seen her laugh at the stories girls share, tell her own and smile a smile that never reached her eyes. “I do. She’s… you’re right, she doesn’t deserve that. Is that why you’re so nice to all the hookers you see on the streets? Your friend?”

“I’m only this nice to people who look like they need someone to be nice to them.” She states it so flatly as she powders his neck and goes back to the cream again, squinting at his throat as her mind works. 

“I look like I need someone nice to me?” There’s a dying ember of laughter in his voice as his head tilts back farther for her, watching the clouds drift past. He hadn’t had a moment to himself to ponder, to contemplate, in a while. He’s almost enjoying it as she dusts another layer against his neck and shakes a bottle before spritzing it on him. “Let that dry,” she says as he starts to methodically put the objects away.

“So?”

“So, what?”

“Do I look like someone who needs someone to be nice to me?”

She hesitates for the first time, her hand hovering holding a bottle that he can hardly see but it smells like hairspray, “You look like someone the world hasn’t been very nice to, Alex. You look like someone who can’t handle people being nice to him because he doesn’t know he deserves it yet; you look like someone who could use a little kindness in his life but is too afraid of it. And I’m not sure why you are, but you are.”

Alex pulls back like he’s been burned, his head snapping back down and his body curling in for defense, if just a fraction, “What exactly does that mean?” And she shrugs--she shrugs, smoothing down the skirt of her dress and looking down at a patch of dying flowers.

“You tell me what it means, Alex, I don’t pretend to know you more than I do,” there’s a sigh at the edge of her voice that Alex wishes he didn’t put there and he wants to take it back. Wants to have gone back in time and kept walking straight ahead and never had this godawful conversation or led her eyes to be so full of pain that she clearly feels for him. Posture relaxing from his defensive pose, he feels a sigh building under his skin.

His hand covers hers in an instant, wanting to soothe away the ache from her gaze, “You’re right. I got into a fight with my best friend over a guy I was… seeing because I wouldn’t help him help me. I just, everyone someone cares about me they leave. I disappoint them, I do something, I make some stupid mistake and they’re gone. Just… gone. And now I made you upset after you were helping me and--” “Alex.” “I just really fucked it all up, I guess. Even with this guy, he was so… he took care of me. More than I probably deserve but he did and I freaked at him when he was just trying to do the right thing by me and I’m such an asshole all the time,” “ _ Alex _ .” “I threw away two of the best things in my life in one night because I can’t keep my goddamn mouth shut and I can’t keep myself from spewing whatever bullshit is in my head, like I can’t actually ever stop and it’s already ruined most of my better relationships and now it’s going to ruin a third because I shouldn’t have--” “ _ Alexander!” _

His mouth snaps shut with an audible click of his teeth and he sits back again, straight-backed and it takes him a moment to realize she’s smiling. She’s smiling at him, it’s a kinda sad smile but it’s a smile none the less. “Alex, you didn’t upset me. I promise, you just… you’re worth more than you think you are and it’s awful that you don’t see that like I do--like your friends do and whoever this guy is does.” Her hand turns over to curl her fingers with his own and he’s a little shocked that they even fit together. “I can’t tell you have more respect for yourself, because that’s not how it works but I can tell you to listen. For once, don’t just hear what your friends are saying to you to rebuke them, but listen. Listen to how much they--we--care about you, okay?”

“I… Eliza, I think I love you.”

“I know you do,” her free hand cups his cheek for a moment before she pulls away wholly, slipping through his fingers like sand on the beaches of St. Croix. “But not quite in the way you want to.”

Her voice is thick and there’s a flash of sadness in her eyes before she--with one last, lingering look--leaves. Alex watches her until her back disappears around the corner of the church and his chest is aching--agonizing and radiating like he’s been seared with hot irons over and over and over again. He fights back the rising urge to remind himself of all the things she stands for--of how she’s the perfect picture of the life he could have had. Of coming home to her and burying his nose in her hair and getting married and having a bunch of little kids running around some big house out on the outskirts of town. The life he could have had if he was someone else, if they’d been born two hundred and fifty years ago and their world could have been something else.

He could have loved her like she deserves, but he doesn’t. Because whenever he envisions falling asleep with a smile, it’s against a strong and powerful chest. Because whenever he thinks of every time he’s ever felt secure and safe it was in a hotel room in New York City in the lingering moments that he let himself be held by a man twice his age. Because he’s never imagined life past the next paycheck or the next rent or the next client as something more than daydream--he’s never imagined a personal life outside of the work he wants to do.

It’s agonizing, knowing what to do--knowing that what you did was right in the moment. Knowing that what you want feels so foreign and beyond your reach.

Alex can’t swallow the bullet in his throat as he pushes himself up, checking the work Eliza did on the surface of his phone. He can hardly tell there was anything different and he makes a note to mend his fences with John and see if he can sic him on James Reynolds next time he’s raring to fight. 

God, mending fences with John.

He’s painfully distracted the entire walk to work--twice as much during his shift and he’s half-shocked he isn’t fired on the spot when he lets a few expensive glass bottles slip through his fingers and shatter against the floor. But no one asks why the usually talkative bagger is suddenly dead silent and he’s thankful for at least that, thankful that his manager gives him some iced but fond look before sending him home a few minutes before the end of his shift and he can scurry home before John takes off for the night again.

That is--if he’s going to. He didn’t speak to Alex when morning came, he was asleep still when Alex woke up and showered and gone by the time he was out. Not exactly new behavior, either, not when they were fighting--John likes his space, likes his distance. Which is why Alex is kinda shocked to see him when he comes through the door. John’s sprawled on the couch, his hand resting over his side again while he watches some stupid TV movie that Alex can’t remember if it’s a remake or the original or which one he’d liked better. 

“I’ll cut you a deal,” Alex says as John jolts from is distracted haze. His eyes snap to Alex sharply and he looks like he’s about to continue his silent treatment before his lips purse and he folds like a wet paper towel.

“What deal?”

Breathe in through his nose, out past his lips, “I’ll let you check out my injuries if you let me check out yours. I know I was only pre-med for a little while but come on, I think I can at least clean you up a little.”

For a second, Alex is a little worried that John’s going to say no. To roll back onto his good side and ignore him until they both eventually die, but he squints up to where Alex leans on the back of the couch over him and sighs, the sound turning into a pained grunt as his fingers tense over his side for a moment before relaxing. “I’m literally a medical professional, Alex, I can handle myself.”

Oh. He had thought that would work--and it sorta did. John's talking to him again, even if it's twelve words. Thirteen if he wants to eliminate contractions and he might if it means John's talking to him more. 

His chest seizes hard in his chest and disappointment bleeds through his veins. Right. John’s a nurse, he handles shit like this for a living.  “But if you insist, I guess you can play doctor for me, grab Herc’s apartment triage kit and c’mere.” There’s even a smile in his voice, and on his lips and in his eyes and Alex can feel the steel band around his heart ease inch by inch.

Okay. He can do this. The modified medical kit is jammed past it’s capacity with whatever serious-grade equipment John smuggled back from the hospital or just picked up whenever he could. Bandages, antiseptic, hypodermic needles, EpiPens, cold packs , whatever they might have needed potentially--they had. And Alex heaved the whole damn thing to living room to set down on the coffee table, exhaling a sharp little breath as he flicked the top of the plastic bin open and sat down next to John. “Here,” he says, chewing his lip for a moment before finishing, “you do me, first. I know you’re dying to do it and if you really did check yourself out--which I know you didn’t, but I’m willing to pretend--then you already know what you’re capable of.”

He says it all on one breath, which he’s pretty proud of and John gives another pained hiss as he leans forward to gather up what he knows he’ll need, “I’m always willing to pretend, Alex. Now shirt off. You can keep our pants on for now.” He’s got a wet wipe in one hand and he’s eyeing the tone difference at Alex’s neck as he stands to strip off his gross work shirt and leave it tossed aside. Let the others think what they will when they get home, he thinks, sitting closer to John’s warmth as he lets him wipe away the traces of make-up from his neck. “Whoever did this was good,” John comments, his gentle fingers drawing little winces from Alex every now and again which he soothes away with a hand on the other side of his throat. 

“Eliza. You met her at the church the other day, she did it for me this morning. Got me through most of work before it kinda wore off a bit.” 

John nods, clearly not about to ask any questions Alex might not want to answer. Though it isn’t like him to tread carefully, to avoid the topics that feel the hardest. He’s playing it safe--just like Alex is. Letting his actions soothe the scorch marks in their bridges instead of words--letting him tend to physical wounds instead of emotional tears. It was how they fixed things.

“This is going to bruise, but I bet you know that,” John says as he drags his fingers and pushes gently at certain, tender, spots. “But you’ll survive.”

Alex doesn’t need to be told that those marks will bruise but he doesn’t say that--he doesn’t agree or push the envelope on that topic. Instead he just makes a soft humming noise in the back of his throat, letting John carefully examine down his ribs and each individual bite and bruise right to the waist of his jeans. He stops at a few bites where sharp incisors chipped open skin and made sure to clean them and, with smirk on his lips, he slaps a Batman themed bandaid over a scratch that wasn’t even bleeding. “If we had lollipops I’d give you one for sitting still,” he practically declares, “but you’re good. I guess I just,” John pauses, looking like his words were caught and he takes in a breath that shakes too hard around the edges for Alex to still be comfortable. “You were crying when you came home, okay? I was scared for you and it’s so goddamn frustrating when you won’t let me help you--and I get that you don’t need it. I promise, I know you’re a big boy who can take care of himself but you’re my best friend too and sometimes,” John’s hands sit uselessly in his lap, but it the way he looks at them they might have well have put those marks around Alex’s neck themselves.

“I needed time to think last night and all of a suddenly I was swarmed on all sides and I shouldn’t have picked you to lash out at,” he admits, scooting more towards John and letting his hand rest on his knee. He’s warm, though his jeans and Alex can feel it against his palm as he gives his leg a friendly little squeeze. “I know you just want what’s best, I just wish you knew you didn’t have to fix everything. Now shut up and take your shirt off.” There’s a crackle of laughter as John obeys, his muscles tensing visibly as he strains to strip and Alex can clearly see why if the patch of angry, inflamed skin is to be blamed on his friends stiffness. 

“Oh for fucks sake, Laurens. On your side--now, dumbass,” he slips from the couch to kneel in front of it as John rolls his eyes and lies down anyway, eyes falling shut with a soft little sigh. “This is gonna hurt, but you already know that, don’t you?”

“Yep.”

Alex’s fingers trace over red and swollen flesh, pressingly lightly with a wince of his own as John inhales sharply, a faint little groan of discomfort just barely audible over his breathing. Nothing moves or shifts and Alex feels a little more confident to crack open a cold pack, work it to a nice, movable shape and rest it over his bruised ribs. It looks like he’d only damaged one, and Alex had been taught enough to determine that none weren’t cracked or broken and he was pretty sure John checked for that as well. But he still checks his phone, making a mental note to take it off after twenty minutes. “Stupid,” he says flatly, scooting on his knees so he was in front of John’s face. “Reckless.”

One eye cracks open at him, a little more amused than annoyed. “Hi, Pot, I’m Kettle. Nice to meet you, I heard you were calling me reckless and I’d point out the irony in that but it looks a little too obvious to me.” 

Alex cleans John’s split lip with his determined set of his mouth curling into a smile. He diligently and softly checks and cleans his scraped and red-and-purple knuckles and triple-checks each individual bruise before wrapping up the cold pack and helping him to bed. “I’m sorry,” He says once he’s got John in his own bed with a nest of half of Alex’s blankets and a bottle of anti-inflammatory pills. 

“For what?”

“For scaring you,” he responds. He hardly thinks about it as he crawls into the nest with John, sinking close to his warmth the way they used to do through bad winters. To keep an eye on him he tells himself, trying to ignore the way John’s eyes light up when he so much as moves towards him. John lies on his good side and pulls Alex closer to sap his body heat, nose pushing against his shoulder, “Sorry for blowing up at you. You’re an adult if you want to bang an older guy who chokes you and lets you call him daddy that’s your choice.”

“How’d you know about the daddy thing?”

“Dude! Fuck, I was  _ kidding _ , oh my  _ god _ . Gross,” John snorts, pushing weakly back at Alex before he wiggles closer instead, relishing in the familiar heat that presses against him. 

He lies there as John falls asleep, the cold pit in his stomach a constant reminder of what bridges still smolder in the distance. Of what he can’t fix, of what he want’s to mend but can’t.  John snores against his shoulder, until Alex is drawn to a pleasant, dreamless, unconsciousness alongside him.

* * *

 

He goes two weeks without seeing Washington in the flesh.

Fixing things with John takes longer than just a half-injured cuddle. They stay up late talking and arguing and they almost slip back, at least once, into snarling and snapping before they get the better of themselves and sit down to talk like the adults they are. Fixing things with John is hard and takes time but it’s effort that Alex is more than willing to put in.

At the end of the first week, Hercules is on the couch--a bowl of cereal propped on his knee as he watches some press conference drone on and one. Alex shuffles in, not giving it half a glance until Herc twitches to the remote to change it and then he sees. “Don’t, I wanna watch this.”

Hesitation is clear in Herc’s eyes but he sets it down anyway, settling back as Alex sits down beside him. Washington’s figure fills the screen, one hand awkwardly shoved in his pocket as the other fusses with his note cards on the podium. He looks… out of place, boarding on comfortable as he clears his throat three times before speaking a volume the microphones in front of him can actually pick up. 

“It was brought to my attention by an outside source that despite the personal connections forged with, ah, F-Rev--forgive me for using their abbreviation my French is rather poor,” there was a polite smattering of laughter and Alex tries not to smile at the way it makes Washington’s lips almost curl up the edges. “But, regardless of names, it was brought to my attention by an outside source that the current direction that F-Rev is headed will not make it a suitable pair for Patriot Industries at this current juncture. With that in mind, we have decided to redact our offer of a partnership and are currently cancelling all talk of deals between our companies. This is not a decision we take lightly and Patriot Industries still recognizes how much we owe to F-Rev and we look forward to any potential of future involvement together however it is not possible at this current moment.”

The silence over the crowd shattered by reporters, calling one over another and another for a quote.

“Does this have anything to do with F-Rev’s battle against your former counterpart, CrimsonCoat Corp?”

“What does this mean for Patriot Industries sales in Europe?”

“Who was your outside source?”

“Were they from CrimsonCoat? F-Rev?” 

That one got Washington’s attention as he looked up sharply, something coloring his expression for half-a-blink before he collects himself again, “No, this source was as I stated an outside source. He merely pointed out that as a company still in its early stages of growth it is important to not tie ourselves to companies in the middle of large policy and ownership changes.”

Alex’s heart stopped.

Fucking stopped as he watches on with his lips parted and his fingers curling against jean-clad legs. “He took my advice,” he half-whispers as Washington slips into more talk about investors and promising that no--it isn’t a personal decision against the potential new leadership. 

“Huh?” Herc pauses, spoon half-way to his mouth. “What advice?”

“I told him not to go through with the deal, I told him F-Rev was unstable right now. I told him that they were sinking and he had to abandon that shit and he fucking  _ did.”  _ There’s awe lacing his voice and he can’t stop his chest from struggling and his hands from shaking and he isn’t sure why. He isn’t sure why his mind is twisting blank over blank over blank because Washington took his advice. Something he said that he was sure was blown off--something he’d pointed out just on the off-chance that it made half a difference. 

He took Alex’s advice. He didn’t sign the deal and Alex might fucking puke. He might hurl right over onto the carpet because he feels sick.

_ I meant what I said. _

_ I’ll consider it, Alexander. _

_ Brilliant. _

He called him brilliant. “You okay there, kid?”

Hercules broke his concentration, snapped him back straight like a rubberband and he focuses back on the screen where Washington handles the questioning like the bro and Alex knows--just fucking knows that he took his advice. Not the advice of some gangly douchebag in a suit telling him what to do but the advice of a whore half-naked in a hotel bed without a college degree, not the advice of his advisors who are glaring from behind him. Alex’s advice.

“No?” It comes out as a question as he struggles to control his breathing and the way the world swims before his eyes. “I told him not to sign the deal and he didn’t. I mean, I’m sure he looked into it himself but, I didn’t think he listened to me.”

God, his voice is so quiet, so weak even with a strong and comforting hand on his back as he hunches forward. “He listened,” he repeats, still trying to comprehend everything from that night at once trying to find out why he’s latched so hard to this. I’ll consider it, now ride my dick.

I’ll consider it.

It sounded like such a brush off--like the best way to shut Alex up and get him to climb into his lap like it was the only way Alex would behave, if he pretended to listen and it never struck Alex how used to that he was. He talked, and talked, and talked and he was so used to no one listening. Whatever bare thread holding Alex together snaps and he sucks in a deep breath that shatters out from his lungs like shrapnel. 

He spends the whole night Googling the shit out of Washington. 

He dreams about him every night for a week and a half. He dreams about his hands, about his body, about his lips. He dreams about him fucking Alex down into the bed with his suit still on. He dreams of Washington shoving his cock so far down his throat he chokes and gags. He dreams of wearing his shirts and making pancakes in the morning. He dreams of kissing him good morning and letting him trace the bruises on his body with a rapturous attention.

He carries those dreams on his back right to his day job. 

As he’s bagging groceries, counting the seconds until he can go home to dream again, he muses over all the things he wishes they had the chance to do. Muses on all the things that he’d wished Washington had said or done to him, all the things Alex wished he said or done. He organizes bags flawlessly on autopilot.

“Paper or plastic? Have a nice day.”

“Paper or plastic? Have a nice day.”

“Paper or plastic? Have a nice day.” On repeat over and over again. It’s late, towards the end of his shift as the snow starts to fall outside. The first snowfall of the winter season and Alex couldn’t possibly be less excited. He hates the snow, hates how cold it is, hates how much harder it is it walk home, hates that it means it gets darker faster and hates it because he always fucking slips on ice. 

He’s so caught up in his hate that he doesn’t look up at the customer when he approaches, but Alex can feel a painfully familiar gaze on him as the cashier reads out the price of whatever it was he bought. Alex’s fingers wrap around it as he resolves to not look up, he drops it in the bag without asking and familiar fingers brush over his own as he takes it. “Alexander.”

“Sir,” his eyes flicker up and then back down again. “It’s nice to see you again.” He hopes his line is full, hope’s the whole store is full and he just didn’t notice because it means Washington’ll rush along and be gone. But he looks up and it’s fucking empty because the universe is a goddamn traitor.

“There was something you left behind the last time I saw you, son,” a surge of heat bursts though Alex and he clamps down hard on the inside of his cheek--hoping the coppery taste of blood would quell the way his dick most certainly put forth interest in that. 

He has to disengage to speak, though. “What was that,  _ sir, _ ” The cashier shifts him a side-ways look at the way Alex comes too close to purring that out on the edge of a biting tone but it doesn’t look like Washington cares as he reaches into pocket to withdraw a business card.

Patriot Industries. He flips it over and borrows a pen to scrawl a number on the back of it, waving it once and then twice to let it dry before handing it over. “I was looking forward to hearing back from you. I must admit my disappointment that we parted the way we did but I do hope that you can look past my indiscretions and consider coming in for an interview?”

“Interview?”

“Your advice on the F-Rev… debacle was most welcome, Alexander. We need minds like yours at Patriot Industries, I recognize that you’re technically under-qualified but I think we can work through it. After all--it’s good business.”

Alex looks at the card, mouth hanging open as he looks between Washington’s gleaming eyes and the number in his hands. “Will I be," he pauses, looking for just the right words, the right innuendo, "filling the same sort of placement as I was before?”

“Only if you don’t have any qualms with that, but I would very much welcome your service as it was before. I haven’t had someone to fill the position you held since you quit my service and, to be honest, no one else ever filled it quite the way you did and as presumptuous as it is, I think it would be fair to say you haven't had a position quiet like the one you had working with me.”

His mouth goes dry and he can’t find the words in his scramble to think as Washington bows his head for a moment and walks the scuffed floor out. He wants to chase him, wants to scramble after him and kiss him in the snow but there’s only one thing he can think to say: “Tench?”

“Yeah?” The cashier says, sounding as numb as Alex feels. 

“I fucking quit.”

“Yeah.”

The cardstock is like a steel weight in his jean pocket as he tosses down his nametag and each stride towards the door makes him want to sprint at it instead, take off at a dead run until he's far away with nothing but Washington's number on the back of a business card. Alex hurries to grab his phone, punching in numbers with half-shaking fingers. He’s hardly out the door when his fingers tap out the last number and press call. It rings once. Twice. Three times and Alex is panicking, his breath is hard and it hurts deep in his chest before it clicks to note someone picking up. At first, there's nothing, nothing but static and silence before Alex manages a weak, "I was told to call about an interview?" There's a breathy chuckle on the other end, staticy and distant but achingly familiar. Too familiar, too familiar and too warm and too comforting, “Took you long enough.”

Alex glances over his shoulders as he walks out from the store, his heart resting just past his tongue, “Any chance this interview can take place tonight?”

 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the end of OTPC! Six chapters and 30k+ works of sin! Again, I give all my thanks to the wonderful Iniquiticy for both the hooker idea as well as being so very invaluable. If you want to talk more about what happens after Chapter 6, about where other characters are in this universe etc, etc, you can hit me up in one of two places: [Tumblr](http://www.nimravinedae.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/nimravinedae)  
> Thank you so very much for sticking around until the end <3

**Author's Note:**

> So we're here at the end and I'd like to make a few points.  
> 1: Don't do what Alex does, we'll get more into that in later chapters but I don't want people assuming I condone ignoring gut instinct when in dangerous situations.  
> 2: Escort Lafayette is important to me on the basis of many things.
> 
> Feel free to direct questions to either my Tumblr (Nimravinedae.tumblr.com) or my Twitter (@nimravinedae)


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